


Songs Remind Me Of You

by taormina



Category: Take That (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Attempts at humour, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mentions of other ships, mentions of depression and alcoholism, solo!Gary, this is not a love triangle, troubled!Mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:51:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taormina/pseuds/taormina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: One morning, award-winning singer-songwriter and Star Wars enthusiast Gary Barlow wakes up to find out that a complete stranger has crashed on his sofa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Doesn’t Matter Where I Seem To Be

Terrified, Gary gently poked the sleeping form on his sofa with the lightsaber he’d retrieved from his bedroom. The snoring bundle of blankets stirred and unconsciously kicked a brown cushion to the floor.

There was definitely a stranger sleeping in his sitting room.

Gary wasn’t imagining it through sheer drunkenness, for last night’s album launch had been a pretty low-key affair. One large newspaper had reported on it thus far and rated the songs off the new album quite favourably. A smaller, Manchester-based newspaper had been less kind and described the launch as a “lethargic event”. Oh well.

Although Gary would have preferred his new album to stay under wraps until the release date next Friday, the record label was adamant that they host a secret listening party. Here, Gary was to perform his latest single and a wide range of album tracks and answer the usual mix of unimaginative questions by journos: ‘Where did your inspiration for the music video come from?’ ‘ _Ohh_ , Vegas, definitely. I’d be doing a Vegas residency if I wasn’t so bloody unpopular over there!’

Truth be told Gary had written the album in under four months so he could get out of his contract with the record label, but no-one needed to know that.

The person on Gary’s sofa was snoring lightly.

Still, most guests seemed to enjoy last night’s performances, and Gary went home feeling mostly content. These were songs that he hadn’t particularly bonded with, but as long as the record-buying public liked them and bought his records in masses, he was okay with that for the time being. One day he’d set up his own record label and self-release his music, away from old men in suits who think they know it all. He just needed time and a partner to share the bulk of the inevitable hard work with.

He’d ask Rob, but his mate was too busy entertaining the crowds of wherever the hell he was.

When his chauffeur had driven the length of the driveway and dropped Gary outside his mansion, nothing seemed to be the matter. Gary cracked his brains trying to remember if he’d seen anything suspicious, but there had been no strange men hiding in the bushes, and no signs of a break-in when he woke up that morning. For a good few minutes, it was just another bright morning in Cheshire.

The men at the record label acted like fucking children when Gary announced he’d be moving back to Cheshire two years ago. Cheshire was miles away from London’s busy recording studios and live events, but fucking hell, had Gary grown to hate his flat in London. It was tiny, too expensive for the amount of square feet it promised, andthe neighbours were bloody awful as well! He couldn’t even play the fucking piano without having the police show up at his door every other night.

In comparison, his house in Cheshire was perfect. He wouldn’t disturb anyone with his piano playing and he could sit down for a cuppa in a different sitting room every day of the week if he wanted to.

As per usual, Gary’s two tiny dogs ran up to the singer-songwriter the moment he kicked off his shoes in the entrance hall that evening. They received a well-earned treat in the form of a cuddle, and hurried off, tails wagging, when Gary promised that he’d walk them on his own tomorrow.

If the dogs had spotted a stranger coming in that night, they would most likely have raised the alarm by barking Gary’s ears off. Alas, they had not, and the first thing Gary did after spotting the stranger on his sofa was check whether his dogs were all right. They were, which was both a relief and a concern: how _had_ this stranger entered his house without anyone noticing anything? Surely Gary had a two-thousand-pound security system in place for this?

The second thing Gary did after coming home was read his mail. The butler (yes, he had a butler, thank you very much) had kindly left all of the day’s mail on the dining table. One or two saccharine letters from fans had slipped through, but other than that it was mostly junk. B-list artists begging him to write them a hit song, requests to compete in charity Bake-Off, that sort of thing.

He quickly read through everything, ripped up the letters and envelopes and tossed them into the fireplace and went upstairs.

He undressed, took a quick shower and went to bed feeling refreshed.

Then morning came.

Dressed in a black t-shirt that was way too tight for sleeping in, Gary started slowly towards the wall his landline phone was attached to. It was still dark and the curtains were drawn, and he nearly stumbled over a pillow as he tiptoed his way to his rescue.

Gary was about to dial the emergency number when the person on his sofa moved and stretched. The blanket slipped off the person’s clad body, revealing what was definitely a guy.

‘S-stop right there, you . . .’ – Gary was struggling to come up with a word that best described his new nemesis – ‘You burgl—intruder!’ he finally cried, blundering over every single word. His lightsaber was held up like a sword. His left hand blindly fished for a switch on the wall, and on came the lights a second later.

The intruder sat up slowly and blinked at the bright chandelier that was hanging over his head. One of Gary’s many sitting rooms, the room they were in now was Gary’s favourite. It was paved with white carpet tiles and had only recently been re-decorated with classy furniture that he’d bought at an auction and had had restored. The painted walls were a sienna brown. Above the white fireplace, there was the framed, custom-made illustration that once posed as the cover of Gary’s fourth album.

The seashell-tinted sofas and chairs were covered with brown cushions. There was a glass table in the middle of the semi-circle of chairs. The butler had placed new pieces of fruit in the brass bowl on the table only this morning. 

‘Wha—?’ mumbled the stranger.

Definitely younger than Gary but not by much, the stranger had short, unruly brown hair that covered his forehead. His eyes were a tired blue. He was clean-shaven. He was wearing a long, grey coat that looked like the sort of garment one might pick up in Camden, and a stylish black waistcoat underneath. He was short; maybe one or two inches shorter than Gary? Gary had never seen this guy before, even though something was telling him _that he should_.

Gary started when the stranger sat up.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ cried Gary, his usual friendliness having completely disappeared. His eyes shifted to the man’s feet. ‘And with your bloody shoes still on, as well!’

The guy rubbed his eyes. He didn’t seem to be fully aware that Gary was in the same room as him, and for a second Gary feared that this intruder was off his heads on drugs.

Believe it or not, but Gary himself had only ever done drugs once. This was back when he was still a struggling artist touring the club circuit, and he didn’t enjoy it one bit. Apparently the stuff was meant to “expand his mind”, but all it did was make him talk deliriously about his favourite ABBA record while eating a ridiculous amount of pizza. His mate Rob, however, used to have a bit of a penchant for the odd pill and drink when they were still young and naïve (and later, when they were less young but still naïve), and more than once did Gary have to save his mate’s backside after a night of clubbing.

Gary wasn’t keen on going through that again tonight, but he had a feeling he was going to.

‘What time is it?’ the intruder yawned finally. He sounded Mancunian.   

Gary squinted. ‘5:30.’

The intruder responded with a groan. ‘I’m going back to sleep. Goodnight, Sir,’ he politely announced before pulling the blanket over his eyes again and turning his back to Gary.

The sight was almost comical.

It would have been, if not for the fact that Gary’s heart was pounding in his throat. Who did this guy think he was?

‘No, you don’t,’ Gary uttered, and he shuffled forwards and poked the small man’s back with his lightsaber. ‘Better start talking, mate.’

The guy mumbled something incomprehensible.

‘What?’ squeaked Gary. He cleared his throat and said it again. ‘ _What_?’

‘It’s not very intimating, you know, you threatening me with a fucking lightsaber,’ the guy said drowsily, the utterance somewhat muffled by the pillow he was resting his head on. ‘Bloody Rob and his mates.’

Gary’s heart dropped. ‘What did you just say?’

The stranger mumbled something that Gary interpreted as more swear words, and he dozed off again almost immediately.

He should’ve known.

This whole situation just had Rob written all over it.

Still clutching his lightsaber, Gary half-ran to the entrance hall and searched in his coat pockets for his private smartphone. With only 3% of battery life left, he sent Rob a series of texts begging him to explain what was going on:

 **17 October 2015. 05:42** — _There’s a stranger in my house and he’s just said he knows you Bob_

 **17 October 2015. 05:43** — _Dude won’t say his name but he’s short and brown haired ? Ring a bell ?_

 **17 October 2015. 05:47** — _Call me ??_

When Rob didn’t immediately reply (Gary had conveniently forgotten that Rob was in the middle of a very successful world tour), Gary ran his fingers through his messy bed-hair in a frustrated manner. Unless this guy woke up soon, there was no way of telling who he was, and no way of finding out what had brought him here. After all, Rob had loads of friends and acquaintances, and not all of them were in this industry. The stranger on his sofa could have met Rob literally anywhere: in a club, at a signing session, at the coffee machine at the BBC studios. Perhaps they were school mates. Neighbours.

Gary cringed when the thought of Rob and the stranger being together entered his mind. How would that even work out, anyway? This guy looked like he stopped growing in height when he was about twelve!

The sound of his poorly vibrating phone told Gary that his battery had run out, and he quietly went back into the sitting room. The stranger was still sleeping soundly (snoring softly again), and suddenly he didn’t look that threatening anymore. If he genuinely meant Gary harm, he would probably have done something about it by now. There didn’t seem to be any objects missing from his cupboards and cabinets, either, and Gary exhaled in relief when he found out that his collection of DVD boxsets had been left untouched.

Feeling thus relieved, he gently put his lightsaber back where it belonged and went into the kitchen.

He’d get to the bottom of this later. First, food.

*

Gary, being British, decided to make his intruder-slash-sofa-crasher breakfast. Not knowing the stranger’s tastes, Gary quickly put together two plates of very British sausages, scrambled eggs and toast. Gary preferred his breakfasts a bit healthier than this (quinoa with fruit and honey was his absolute fave; second best were his homemade fruit smoothies), but this would do.

When Gary walked into the sitting room with his hot plates, his unwelcome guest had already woken up. He had neatly folded up his blanket and put his grey coat over an armrest. He looked much more awake than he did half an hour ago.

‘You’ve made breakfast,’ deduced the stranger. He finally kicked off his shoes after an angry look from Gary and crossed his legs on the sofa. ‘I thought you had a butler for that?’

Gary decided to ignore the mocking tone of the stranger’s voice and politely told him that he’d given his butler the day off as he put the plates on the table. He lay two cutlery sets next to the plates as well — with blunt knives, just in case. ‘And you’re not having these sausages before you’ve told me who you are,’ he added when the stranger eyed the food hungrily.

‘What’re you gonna do?’ teased the stranger. ‘Threaten me with your Star Wars memorabilia?’

‘If I have to.’

The stranger smiled a little at that. ‘Rob did warn me you were a bit of a geek. I’m surprised you haven’t written the title track for _The Force Awakens_ to be honest.’

‘I did call them, but I think they wanted someone a bit younger,’ said Gary, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. He didn’t like this guy at all thus far. ‘Anyway, how do I know you’re not just some crackpot journalist?’

‘I told ya, I know Rob.’

‘Prove it.’

The stranger frowned. ‘How? D’you want me to draw you a detailed map of all his tattoos or something? Okay, fine, _Jesus_ ,’ he added when Gary made a movement to remove his plate. He rubbed his nose and said, ‘I know that you didn’t write _The Flood_ on your own. You and Rob did, together, but Rob let you take all the credit. I can see why, the rest of the album’s shit. Not that I listen to you much, mind.’

No-one knew about that. Not even the record label did.

The things that happened at recording studios were sacred territory. Not that any strange things ever went down, but Rob and Gary’s songs were so related to their private lives that sometimes writing together was like having a free counselling session with a therapist. Consequently he and Rob never talked to anyone else about their writing sessions, and why should they? People were going to give the finished songs their own spin anyway.

‘Are you an ex of Rob’s?’ Gary asked, heart rate increasing. It was a blunt question, but one he suddenly felt a great need to know an answer to. It was the only way Rob could have deviated from their Songwriting Act of Secrecy, really.

The stranger chuckled. ‘Are _you_ , Mr. Barlow?’

‘No,’ Gary lied.

‘Then I’m not either,’ said the stranger before taking the breakfast plate from the table and putting it comfortably on his lap. He shoved a spoonful of beans into his mouth, swallowed, and said, ‘I’m Mark. Nice to meet you, Sir.’

‘Mark who?’

Mark decided to put a bit of butter on his toast. ‘Owen.’

The name did ring a bell, albeit vaguely. It wasn’t Rob who had mentioned him, though, it was someone else. _Someplace_ else, like in a corridor at Universal Music or at a Costa’s in Manchester before a gig.

Then again, it _was_ a common name. Mark Owen could be anyone.

Gary pursed his lips. ‘And you’re here because . . . ?’

‘This piece of toast is really good, you know,’ said Mark, ignoring Gary’s question completely. ‘Aren’t you going to eat anything?’ he added with a wave at Gary’s plate.

‘ _But why are you here_?’

‘I don’t have a place to stay.’

‘Yeah, but _—’_

 _‘_ Have you got orange juice? I’d like a bit of orange juice, I think.’

Suddenly Gary wasn’t so hungry anymore.

If this guy was a mate of Rob’s, then fine. Gary could live with that. He might even be able to tolerate him taking over his sofa. But if Mark refused to open up to him, Gary wasn’t going to either.

‘I’m going to eat in the kitchen,’ Gary announced with an edge, and he picked up his plate and walked away. He was about to turn a corner and head into the next corridor when Mark cleared his throat.

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Barlow,’ Mark said before having another spoonful of beans.  

Gary stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder. ‘For what?’ he said, sounding impatient.

‘Rob not telling you.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s a bit too late for that. You’re here now, aren’t you? For fuck’s sake.’

Gary didn’t stay to hear Mark mumble, ‘I wasn’t talking about that.’

*

Sometimes things are so frustrating that it’s best if you don’t care about them at all.

The morning’s events had tired Gary to such an extent that he stopped giving a shit by the time he had taken a shower and put on a fresh set of clothes in his bedroom. There were more important things that he needed to worry about today, like how he was going to convince Ariana bloody Grande to sing lead on the song he had written for his pending musical.

In fact, it was only until Gary left his bedroom that he remembered Rob’s mate in the sitting room.

Gary’s bedroom was, for lack of a better word, huge. Its walls were white, and the floor was a zig-zag pattern of warm yellow and white. (All marble, of course.) The waterbed had been made with immaculate white sheets and adorned with gold, embellished pillows that would seduce even the most sleep-deprived person into a pleasant slumber. At the end of the bed stood a sofa that was ten times more expensive than the one Mark had crashed on.

But we digress. What’s important to point out here, is that Gary couldn’t remember the last time he had shared a bed with someone. After his return to the charts several years ago, Gary spent all his time and energy in making sure _he stayed there_. There simply wasn’t any time for romantic liaisons, there really wasn’t.

When asked about his love life by nosy journalists (for he was a much-desired bachelor for both men and women), Gary always pretended he was okay with living in a house this big on his own. And part of him was; alone, he could tinker with songs throughout the night and have a wank whenever he wanted.

But deep down, he did get lonely.

Certain corners of the house would perhaps look less terrifying if he had a hand to hold whenever he had a midnight craving for avocadoes.

Wearing a simple white t-shirt, jeans, and a light-blue denim blouse, Gary told Mark – who had still not moved from his precious spot on the sofa – that he would report him to the police if he so much touched a hair on his dogs’ bodies.

In the entrance hall, Gary sent Rob another text –

 **17 October 08:19 2015.** — _I swear to God Rob if this is one of your jokes_

– and he left for work after having discreetly locked most of the doors in the house. He trusted Rob not to hook him up with some homicidal nutter, but Mark just didn’t seem like a very reliable guy at all.

Gary never did like a secretive person, and the reason why he had such a bad ride back in the early noughties was for that very reason: they just weren’t being honest with him, the people from the record company. For years and years, they supported him and praised his work, and the next moment he was out of a job! Ever since, Gary was a true believer of Transparency in his deceitful world of liars and yes-men. If he didn’t like a melody or a lyric a co-writer had come up with, he’d say so. If he hated an outfit that his stylist had selected for him, he’d say so. He was past coming up with white lies to please everyone, frankly. In the end, being a performer was just like being in any other profession, and you weren’t going to have a good time at it if you weren’t going to be honest with one another.

If Mark refused to talk to him like an adult, he was going to find being stranded in a mansion in Cheshire extremely difficult.

After Gary was greeted by his faithful chauffeur at the door, the events from the previous night suddenly felt like a faraway memory. Once Gary got stuck in writing a brand new soundtrack for his next project, he forgot about Mark altogether. He just wasn’t important enough. Not special enough. He didn’t even check his phone for messages from Rob.

Mark didn’t matter.

What Gary was doing, here, in his mate’s state-of-the-art recording studio, _did._

Everything changed when Gary came home that night.

The sight that welcomed Gary upon kicking off his shoes and turning on the lights momentarily stopped him in his tracks. The sitting room was in complete disarray. Cigarette butts lay in a little ash pile on the glass table. (Ugh!) A chair was turned over. Filthy mud prints had stained the formerly so pristine carpet tiles.

Completely forgetting the events of that morning, Gary was about to call the police and report a break-in. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had tried monetizing on his well-earned belongings.

Then he remembered Mark.

For the majority of five minutes, Gary was livid. This Mark Owen guy showing up unannounced was one thing, but _this_? Who the hell did Mark think he was, treating Gary’s house like his own personal pigsty? Actually, you know what — he didn't care one bit. He _could_ have been Rob’s former lover for the little he knew about the guy; Gary was going to kick him out, change his locks, and pray to God that the press wouldn't find out about it. He didn’t need controversy ahead of his album release next Friday.

Gary found Mark dry-heaving over the water basin in his bathroom ten minutes later.

A lot of time and money had gone into the bathroom. (All three of them, in fact.) Although the previous owners were the filthy rich owners of a chain of hotels in central Europe, they didn’t have very good taste; once the keys had been handed over and all the paperwork was filled out, all their hideous curtains, wallpaper, bathtubs and lamps had to go. This left Gary with a near-empty mansion that he could play and experiment with, and over the course of a year every single room was re-designed and refurbished.

The bathroom was in stark contrast with the rest of the house. Gary’s house was soft and warm, the colours reminiscent of a hot, comfortable beach. With its white, glossy tiles and black mirrors and cupboards, the bathroom was almost entirely black and white. The walls were various shades of warm grey, with hints of white on the wooden plinths. Everything was sharp and straight, nearly mathematically so.

To see Mark there, so vulnerable and human, was almost wrong.

He looked a right mess, Mark did: eyes red and puffy, tears rolling down his cheeks. Hands clutching the basin so hard that his knuckles had turned white. Chest heaving in and out as though he was having trouble sucking the air into his lungs. His forehead was covered in sweat. The stubborn spark that Gary had seen in Mark's eyes in the sitting room that morning had gone out, leaving only bright-eyed panic.

He was still wearing his black waistcoat, but it had lost all the shine it possessed previously.

There was blood on his white dress shirt.

Heartbeat increasing, Gary spotted all these signs in five seconds or less. He should have known better than to assume that Mark was just one of Rob's oddball friends who needed a place to kip for the night. There was more going on, and he should have seen it right from the start. The signs were all there the second he first laid eyes on this guy, in plain sight.

Mark didn't even seem to be aware of Gary entering the bathroom, for he started when Gary rested a worried hand on his right arm.

‘You all right, mate?’ Gary asked, trying hard not to sound as anxious as he felt.

Mark nodded and threw up into the basin.

He’d been there before, Gary had: with Rob, time and time again, when he went out at three in the morning and returned home with a shoe missing and a bottle of beer in his hand. Rob had always been bathed in depression, even when he was scoring more awards and platinum singles than Gary had in his entire life, but then the alcohol came in, and every single mood swing and hot flush of unhappiness was magnified. It made him more reckless than usual, the alcohol did, which was generally not a nice thing to happen if you’d rather be dead.

But Rob still came home every single night, and Gary was always there for him.

That is, until he wasn’t anymore.

‘Okay, let's get you to bed, shall we, Mark?’ Gary suggested. ‘Christ, you're like a bloody radiator, your temperature’s so high,’ he said, more to himself than to Mark when he slung Mark's arm over his neck. Mark was burning up, and he nearly fell over when Gary tried to pull him out of the bathroom and into the hallway.

Mark wasn’t drunk.

‘I'm not going to bloody carry you, mate. Put some fucking work in.’ His hand firmly on Mark's back, Gary slowly led Mark towards the door – which was harder than Gary expected; Mark’s heavier than he looks! – and Mark replied with some incoherent mumbling that sounded very much like swear words.

Whatever had caused this downpour of shit, it had to be pretty fucking big, and it would appear that Rob was expecting Gary to somehow be able to deal with it. Perhaps it was a series of events that Gary had dealt with too. Perhaps it was something he had once sung about. It might even have been something that Rob had something to do with.

But he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was.

They reached the spare bedroom at last. Mark's eyes began to droop, and he collapsed against Gary's chest.

*

‘Here, drink this.’

‘I don’t wanna drink . . . whatever that is.’

‘Well, you’re gonna have to, cos you look like shit.’

Grumbling, Mark sat a little straighter and put the glass of what looked like vegetable juice to his lips. It tasted rank, and it nearly made him retch again.

‘That’s disgusting,’ Mark said as he wiped his mouth and put the glass on his bedside table. The traditional British breakfast on the bedside table still untouched, Mark pulled up his sheets and folded his arms over his chest. ‘I take it this is when you start having a go at me for throwing up in your bathroom?’

Gary shook his head. ‘I’m not.’ He was sitting on the edge of Mark’s bed, about an arm’s length away. ‘What do you remember?’

After Gary had managed to get an unconscious Mark into bed, Gary sent out the butler and cancelled most of this morning’s appointments. Deep down feeling quite worried about Rob’s mate, Gary decided to stay with him throughout the night to keep an eye on him. Mark spent the next few hours tossing and turning in bed and mumbling things that meant nothing to Gary in his sleep.

Gary sent Rob another text that evening, but predictably, he got no reply.

Mark woke up at nine that morning, half an hour ago. Gary had made him breakfast and given him a fresh pair of clothes to change into, but Mark had stubbornly stayed in bed. He looked slightly better than he did yesterday, but the mental hangover from whatever he went through last night was still present in the blue of his eyes. 

If Mark didn’t look so worn-out, he would probably be attractive.

‘I remember throwing up in your bathroom.’

‘All right . . .’

Mark’s cheeks gained a bit more colour. He pulled up his legs and hugged his knees. ‘I was feeling angry, I suppose. Scared. Like I wasn’t meself anymore.’ As though lost in thought, he fingered the bedsheet’s embroidered leaves. The sheets were a bronze colour, appliquéd with a large, curving pattern of mocha leaves and roses. The pillows that were piled up behind his back were brown and comfortable. ‘It feels so far away now,’ said Mark finally, ‘like it hasn’t even happened.’

Gary knew how that felt. Long ago, when his career took a nose-dive into the lower regions of the Bubbling Under charts in America and Gary couldn’t even score a proper hit at home anymore, he dealt with that feeling every day. It wasn’t the fear of people not liking his tracks anymore, it wasn’t that. It was more that he had no idea whether the royalties from his previous hits were enough to sustain his way of life. He couldn’t just go back to being Gary from Frodsham and play songs on a keyboard he got for a knocked-down price; his life had been altered too much for that.

And then there was Rob, still his mate but no longer the struggling artist Gary met in a pub in ’89, and everything that Gary held dear was pulled into a black hole.

Gary smiled at Mark apologetically. ‘Mark, I think you may have had an anxiety attack. It’s okay,’ Gary reassured him, ‘Lots of people have ‘em, even me.’

Mark scoffed. ‘“ _The Garden_ hitmaker” Gary Barlow has anxiety?’

‘I’m — hang on, that song was only released in Europe,’ said Gary, dumbstruck. ‘I thought you didn’t listen to my records?’

Mark rolled his eyes. ‘Rob _does_ talk about you occasionally, you know. He put me through listening to your Christmas album last year, actually.’

Gary cringed. ‘I hated that album.’

‘So did I.’

Gary pressed his lips together as he thought. More and more pieces were slotting into place.

Mark had no place to sleep. He said as much yesterday morning.  

Secondly, Mark knew Rob. The fact that Rob had never mentioned him either meant that they had only known each other for a short amount of time (which wasn’t likely, for Mark knew about _The Flood_ ) or that they _did_ actually have something going on at some point in the past.

Although Gary and Rob had remained friends after their break-up many, many years ago, the parting was a tough decision for the both of them. Controversially, the fact that they both managed to keep their relationship and the subsequent break-up completely quiet made it more complicated. Gary was used to having his love life scrutinised by the press; no-one knowing about his break-up from Rob made it even harder to bear. Suddenly his relationship with Rob was no more, and who was he to tell about it?

It wouldn’t surprise Gary if Rob decided to stay quiet about his love life because it was all he knew.  

Thirdly, Mark clearly had anxiety. If not that, there _must_ be something that was doing a pretty good job at ruffling his feathers. Anxiety attacks such as these, Gary knew, were often an accumulation of one bad thing after another, bursting at the seams until one event triggers it. For Rob, it was usually a mix of alcohol and bad decision-making, either by himself or the people at the record label. All Rob needed was one bad performance and one too many drinks, and he’d be off again, harming himself physically and mentally until Gary raced down the M1 and came and picked Rob up at the hotel.  

Rob got better eventually, but the best parts of their relationship never quite recovered.  

‘Mark, I need you to tell me what’s wrong,’ said Gary finally. He reached out to rest a sympathetic hand on Mark’s arm, but Mark gave a small shake of his head and scooted further away from him. ‘I can’t help you if you won’t say anything,’ Gary added softly before picking up a pillow that had ended up on the floor.

‘I can’t,’ was Mark’s reply.

‘Why not? Are you living rough? Are you on the run from someone? Oh, don’t give me that look, Owen, I don’t know, do I? Then, have you — have you broken up with someone?’ – Mark reddened – ‘Okay, so a bad break-up, then. Was it . . . it wasn’t Rob, was it?’

‘It wasn’t Rob,’ Mark said, rolling his eyes.   

Gary’s heart started beating a little faster. He knew better than to poke his nose into Rob’s love life – he was quite a private person these days, Rob –, but Gary couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t be expected to take Mark, a complete stranger, into his home not knowing what he meant to his best mate.

Mark didn’t look it, but if he turned out to be Rob’s former drug dealer Gary would probably start treating him with extreme prejudice.

‘But . . . you were together? You and Rob?’

‘We were, yeah,’ said Mark after a silence that felt like forever, and Gary’s heart dropped. ‘We were in a relationship years ago, you know, the, erm, casual kind, I suppose, but then Rob decided he didn’t want to be together anymore cos, well, he was still getting over you, wasn’t he?’ he said, not bitterly. When Gary frowned as if to say _Hang on, I didn’t know about that,_ Mark added, ‘Wait, did you really think that he was okay with you breaking it off at the time? _Oof_. Sorry ‘bout that,’ he said before finally taking a bite of the cold toasted bread Gary had brought him.

Gary swallowed. ‘Blimey.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, we became good friends,’ Mark said with his mouth full, ‘and that’s how I ended up ‘ere. Rob just assumed you wouldn’t mind me crashing on your sofa, really. Guess he was wrong about that,’ he added, rolling his eyes in a final act of defiance.

So Mark and Rob _had_ been together.

‘You don’t like me, do you, Mark?’

And Rob took a longer time getting over his parting with Gary than Gary ever did.

‘I never said that, Mr. Barlow.’

‘What, so you’re always so, er . . . ?’ Gary waved his hands in the air, unable to come up with an adjective that best described Mark. Yesterday he’d have gone with _rude_ , but rude is what you use for fans who jump queues and call you “dad” on Twitter. 

‘What, _moody_? I’ve been told that I’m usually quite a kind person, actually,’ Mark pointed out.

‘ _Have_ they?’

‘How do you think I’ve managed to get me first single out? I just smiled at everyone,’ said Mark, dropping his guard for the very first time.

These days, Gary spent most of his time writing and performing. It’s not that he didn’t want to have a social life, but he genuinely loved his job. Yes, he hated the pressure the record label was putting him under and he didn’t always like the songs he was forced to put out, but he loved getting out there and performing. Meeting fans. Making people’s day. He’d had the time to club, shag and smoke his way through life back in the early days of his career, and he’d had enough of that now. He’d seen enough damage being done by the secondary elements of the music industry that he just wanted to sink his teeth into touring and writing and do nothing else.

Even if he did keep his best songs away from the grubby hands of record label execs.

‘So you’re an artist?’

Mark nodded.

‘Jesus, Mark, why didn’t you just say so?’

‘It never came up. Have you got more toast?’

*

When Gary went downstairs to grab Mark some more toast (Mark was going to tell him everything in exchange for food, but no more disgusting fruit and veg juices please thank you), Rob had finally answered his texts. Gary flipped through them with his thumb while he absentmindedly put two slices of bread into his toaster.

 **18 October 2015. 09:36** — _SOZ GAZ, TOURING LIFE KEEPING ME BUSY AND ALL THAT._

Gary opened his fridge without looking up from his screen and grabbed a half-full carton of milk.

 **18 October 2015. 09:36** — _IT’S MARK OWEN. MATE OF MINE. HAS HAD A DIFFICULT RIDE IN LIFE LATELY AND IS IN NEED OF A BIT OF HELP AND A PLACE TO STAY. RECKON YOU CAN OFFER HIM BOTH. HE MAY BE HURT AND ANGRY RIGHT NOW BUT HE’S A KIND PERSON REALLY. KINDEST PERSON I KNOW._

‘I bet, mate,’ said Gary with a raise of his eyebrows. He scrolled past more texts while he poured the milk into a glass—

 **18 October 2015. 09:38** — _APART FROM YOU GAZ._

 **18 October 2015. 09:39** — _WISH I COULD BE THERE FOR MARK MYSELF BUT I’M IN MELBOURNE OR SOMETHING. THINK I’VE JUST OFFENDED A JOURNALIST._

 **18 October 2015. 09:41** — _HE JUST NEEDS SOMEONE TO UNDERSTAND HIM. MARK I MEAN._

Gary nearly poured the milk over the kitchen counter.

 **18 October 2015. 09:41** — _TOUR MANAGER IS TELLING ME TO PUT MY PHONE AWAY. TALK LATER._

Gary rolled his eyes. Typical Rob, this was. Still, Gary felt more reassured than he had all week, and once Mark had settled down with another piece of toast he started talking at last — and at length!

Little did Gary know that he and Mark were more alike than he thought . . .  


	2. The Sound Of You Reminds Eternally

‘I’m a singer,’ said Mark after he had taken a bite of his toast. ‘Well, I was. Or I still am. I’m not really sure _what_ I am anymore, to be honest,’ he added, his voice trailing off as his mind went elsewhere.

Gary followed Mark’s gaze and saw that he was staring at his Ivor Novello award on his dresser.

Rather exhibitionisticly, Gary had his awards spread out throughout his entire house. There was one Brit Award for every room, and the platinum record that he received for one of his most recent hit singles was the centrepiece in his ensuite bathroom. It’s not that Gary liked boasting about his achievements, it’s just that the awards were a constant reminder that _things got better_.

There were hardly any personal photos in the house but for one or two photos of Gary’s celebrity mates.

Mark cast down his eyes. ‘I’ve always been performing, ever since I was young. Did gigs at weddings and staff parties and so on, and even did some busking. I was doing okay, I guess, and I even started writing songs of me own at one point. They were all right, some of them, and last year I got signed to — well, I suppose it don’t really matter, they don’t care about me anymore . . . anyway, it was a big label. A proper one, you know, with a — a main office in London, the walls lined up with one platinum record after another . . .’ He glanced at the award again. ‘But I suppose you know what that’s like.’

Gary thought it wise not to say anything.

‘Anyway,’ Mark went on, ‘They’d seen me videos on YouTube, of covers that I performed in me shed and songs that I’d done meself, and then everything just sort of kicked off, really. I recorded me first record at Abbey Road and released the first single a few weeks later, and, well, it — it did all right.’ For a time, he seemed embarrassed by his own achievements. ‘You know, erm, it went number three on the charts and we got amazing reviews from Pitchfork and NME so on, and —’

Mark paused, and Gary suddenly remembered where he had heard Mark’s name before. Gary was at Polydor HQ to sign a press release for the new album, and he overheard one of the receptionists talking about this guy who got dropped because his second single peaked at no. 76. The guy’s entire album was canned, and his songs given to some nobody.  
  
It was perhaps rather arrogant, but Gary remembered feeling incredibly grateful for the position he was in at the time. There was no way the company would drop him and even if they did there was always the label that Gary was planning to set up himself anyway. Gary Barlow was going nowhere, and it would take an awful lot of beating to get him down to the level he was at more than a decade ago.

But it hadn’t always been that easy, and he found himself sympathising with Mark more and more.

He knew what it was liked to be given up on. Time and time again.

Mark went on, ‘And then the second single was chosen, and everything — everything just went tits up. I didn’t even like the song that much,’ he added, pouting a little. ‘And the second the midweeks were released, that was it, I suppose. I was dropped. No more album. No more performances . . . Just nothing.’ As though wanting his words and thoughts out quickly, he started talking a bit faster. ‘You hear these stories sometimes, of acts who don’t even make it past the first or second single, and you think, _Oh, that won’t happen to me, I’m with a label who’ll protect me_ , and then . . . they don’t.’

Mark took a sip of milk. He was shaking.

‘You all right?’ Gary placed his hand on Mark’s shoulder, and this time Mark didn’t back away from him.

Rob was right: he _did_ understand Mark. Every word reverberated within him, bringing back past emotions that he couldn’t remember ever having felt. And yet here it was, a splitting image of his past, sat on his bed.

‘‘M fine,’ said Mark unconvincingly. He turned away his head so he could discreetly wipe away a tear and went on, ‘So that’s me career in music over with, and then me boyfriend decides to split up with me. Kicked me out the door. We’d only been together for about five years as well, the fucking twat. I was going to propose to him and everything,’ he said bitterly. He listlessly ran his index finger over the rim of his glass. ‘I guess last night I was so busy worrying about it that I just . . . panicked. Lost meself. Like there was a part of me that just wanted to hurt meself. Like if I was in pain maybe the heartache would go away.’

Gary didn’t know what to say to that. ‘I’m — wow, I’m sorry. Shit. God, I’ve been a bit of a prick, haven’t I?’ Gary admitted, colouring. He’d been so busy feeling frustrated that no-one was telling him anything that he hadn’t taken a minute to consider Mark’s feelings in this. Mark was more than a stranger who had crashed on his sofa; he was a real person with real feelings, feelings that Gary, unfortunately, recognized all too well.

The more he knew about Mark, the more Gary liked him.

‘Just a bit,’ said Mark, laughing a little. ‘Anyway, that’s why I’m ‘ere,’ he went on. ‘Don’t have no place of me own anymore and Rob’s the only person I could trust, so I called ‘im up and he gave me your keys. Well, his assistant did, anyway. Rob said you’d understand.’

‘Why didn’t you just tell me all this straight away?’ said Gary. ‘I must’ve looked like a right idiot, standing there with me lightsaber.’

‘I didn’t know I could trust you, did I?’

Gary considered this. ‘I suppose not. Anyway, I’m just happy that we’re on proper speaking terms now,’ he said, standing up to leave. ‘You’re looking better as well, much healthier and happier. ‘S long as you don’t wear your shoes indoors I’m fine with you staying here for a few days, I guess. But try to enter me bedroom and you’ll be out on your ear, lad.’

‘What, is there a replica of the Death Star in there or somethin’?’ – Gary’s eyes went wide – ‘God, there is, isn’t there?’

Gary collected Mark’s empty plate. ‘I’m not telling you anything,’ he said, his eyes twinkling.

*****

**19 November 2011. 11:41 —** _GAZ? CAN I ASK YOU SOMETHING?_

**19 November 2011. 11:57** — _Go to sleep Rob_

**20 November 2011. 00:13** — _DO YOU EVER THINK THAT WE, AS HUMAN BEINGS, ARE INHERENTLY SAD?_

**20 November 2011. 00:14** — _Jesus_

**20 November 2011. 00:19** — _Are you ok ? You’ve not relapsed have you ?_

**20 November 2011. 00:20** — _I’M JUST IN A CONTEMPLATIVE MOOD GAZ_

**20 November 2011. 00:21** — _Contemplating what ??_

**20 November 2011. 00:22** — _???_

**20 November 2011. 00:26** — _GAZ PLS_

**20 November 2011. 00:26** — _IF YOU MUST KNOW I’M WATCHING RERUNS OF X FACTOR ON MY BED_

**20 November 2011. 00:38** — _Ok well I think that life has its good and bad moments mate . You know as well as I do how easy it is to reach rock bottom and that we’re not always in charge of everything . It’s a bloody awful place to be in sometimes, the music industry … I know that when I was without a record label I thought I’d never feel happy again but I did eventually_

**20 November 2011. 00:39** — _But I don’t believe that other people are meant to be sadder than others if that’s what you’re asking_

**20 November 2011. 00:39** — _Why the question ?_

**20 November 2011. 00:48** — _JUST CURIOUS MATE_

**20 November 2011. 00:49** — _Do you need me to come round ??_

**20 November 2011. 00:56** — _NO BOSS. THANKS BOSS._

**20 November 2011. 00:56** — _Take care of yourself Bob_

**20 November 2011. 00:57** — _WILL DO GAZ_

*

Gary made Mark promise that he wouldn’t go looking for his Star Wars merch and left for work. He was booked for interviews at a couple of local radio stations to promote his new record in the afternoon and was planning to head into the studio again straight after. There wasn’t anything in particular that he felt like working on, but he needed some time alone after the weird couple of days that he’d had. He might even try writing a song about it, just for the hell of it.

After his first interview of the day – with a nervous young girl who hadn’t done her research –, Gary made himself comfortable in the back of the car and turned on his iPad.

Hesitating, his fingers hovered over the internet app. (It’s 2015; the car had Wi-Fi.) Gary knew better than to look people up online, but Mark was famous. Or at least, he was. Kind of. This made Googling him okay, didn’t it? It’d just be like hearing a nice song on Capital and looking up the artist afterwards; it’s not like Gary was going to check Mark’s private Facebook page. He just wanted to hear his songs, is all.

He selected the app and typed in Mark’s name.

972,000 results. Was that good?

Curious, he clicked IMAGES.

Bad decision.

Evidently, Mark was a model, or had been when he was younger; he featured in many tasteful photos with his top off, and Gary burned up just looking at them. That body!

‘Is that a . . . tattoo?’ Gary asked himself when he came across an older photo of Mark pulling his trousers down a little. There was a tattoo of a dolphin on Mark’s belly. ‘God, it fucking is, as well,’ he said, holding the iPad a bit closer to his face for purely scientific reasons. He knew perfectly well that he was crossing a line by looking at these photos, and yet he kept scrolling and scrolling until the search engine was no longer able to offer him relevant images. ‘Blimey.’

After Gary got over the initial shock of the . . . interesting range of pictures that Google Images conjured up for him, he stumbled upon Mark’s website.

Gary braced himself for a waterfall of shots of Mark lying in an empty bathtub half naked and breathed in relief when the website turned out to be a stylistic, black and white sort of affair. He clicked the ABOUT section, which directed him to a blurb that had undoubtedly been written by the record label:

_Get ready to obsess over Britain’s next pop sensation. With a unique voice and a songwriting talent that is out of this world, Mark Owen is here to stay. His debut single_ Into The Wild _was described by Pitchfork as ‘A clever, almost cinematic blend of indie and electro-pop that brings to mind the epic road trips from summer blockbusters’ and is shortlisted for the Popjustice £20 Music Prize. It’s sold more than 100,000 copies in the UK. In August this year, Mark announced the release of his second single_ Julie, _a melancholic, guitar-led song with an infectious chorus. Speaking of the lyrics, Mark says that the song is about a girl he loved when he was young, and whom he wishes would see the beauty in life._

Gary scoffed. ‘Sure.’

_Mark has been playing gigs up and down the country since last year, starting as support act for label-mates Years & Years before playing intimate sets at V Festival and Glastonbury. His debut album is due for release in February next year._

‘So you were at the same label, then, Mark?’ Gary asked his iPad. ‘Interesting, that.’

Gary clicked a few more links and ended up watching the video of Mark’s debut single. It took place in a desert and featured a hat-wearing Mark doing a lot of Serious Walking in the hot American sun. It wasn’t unlike the video for _Bodies_ that Rob shot years ago, except Mark’s video was the Lidl version: it looked like it cost about five quid to make.

Actually, he’d like to take that back; the ending of the video _was_ quite brilliant. Very Coldplay, which he guessed was the whole point.

The song was bloody amazing.

He did more digging and eventually came across some old vlogs on what Gary assumed was Mark’s own YouTube channel. The view counts barely reached four-figure digits, but Mark was one hell of a performer, and – dared he say it – rather attractive when not sick in Gary’s bathroom or stretched out over his sofa. There was a softness and kindness to Mark’s features that he liked very much indeed, and Gary had to click away a video in which Mark was speaking to his viewers from his bed.

_Oh dear_.

*

That evening, a pleasant waft of cookery smells welcomed Gary when he closed the front door and kicked off his shoes in the entrance hall. Curious, he went into the kitchen to see that Mark, who was already looking much better than he had that morning, was preparing dinner in the kitchen. The kitchen was too lavish to do it justice with fancy superlatives, but it was the perfect compromise between rustic and luxurious, with its ice cream maker (that was never used) as one of its many expensive attractions. There were a dozen cookbooks primarily about healthy food on a shelf next to all the pots and pans. A shelf was pulled open, revealing a richly filled spice cabinet.

Thankfully, Mark seemed to have managed to keep the kitchen absolutely spotless.

‘You’ve made dinner,’ Gary remarked when he saw that Mark was plating something up. It wasn’t quite at the Heston Blumenthal levels of cooking that Gary was used to, but it looked absolutely delicious. ‘And . . . you’re wearing me apron,’ he remarked less cheerfully when he saw that Mark was indeed wearing one of his Star Wars aprons.

‘Sorry, t’was either this or get sauce all over your clothes,’ Mark apologised while sprinkling the food on his plates with grated parmesan cheese. ‘Which I’ve also borrowed, sorry. The clothes, I mean, not the sauce. That’d be odd, wouldn’t it?’

Mark, Gary saw, was wearing one of his long sleeve shirts that Mark probably didn’t realize cost about a hundred quid. He’d rolled the sleeves up to his elbows. Despite its price tag, Gary didn’t like the shirt very much. It looked better on Mark, whose smaller frame was making it look like a fluffy jumper rather than the pec-hugging garment Gary appreciated it for at the time of buying.

Gary’s eyes flickered to Mark’s clad stomach before he quickly shook his head to get rid of a bad thought. ‘What’ve you done with your own clothes?’ said he, waving a hand above Mark’s dish like a queen greeting her subjects to soak up the aroma. ‘Smells great, this. What is it?’

‘It’s, um, hang on,’ said Mark, grabbing and flicking open a grease-stained cookbook that Gary had once gotten from a mate. ‘Pan Seared Salmon and Parmesan— oh wait, I’ve read the recipe all wrong, says here I should of used the parmesan on — in the potatoes . . . ? You haven’t got any potatoes, have you?’ He bit his lip, embarrassed. When Gary shook his head Mark added, ‘Anyway, I put everything in the washing machine but it’s a bit more high-tech than mine, so if the bathroom’s covered in soap you can, I dunno, bill me, I guess. Actually, maybe don’t bill me, I can’t afford it.’

Mark really did look better. Not only was he wearing something that did not have stains all over it, his hair was combed and his eyes looked brighter. He smiled a bit more. There was something about his voice that sounded different, too, like he was bright awake rather than only just waking up. Looking at him now, you’d have no idea that he had an anxiety attack last night and that he was acting like a grumpy little sod only this morning. Something must have changed that morning that made him feel more alive, made him more like the Mark that Rob must know so well.

It must’ve been the chat that they’d had, Gary thought.

‘Right. Okay,’ said Gary. He’d worry about the state of his washing machine later. ‘So where’d you get all this food from?’ He looked at an organized mess of kitchen utensils and ingredients on the kitchen counter. He couldn’t remember buying most of them. There was some leftover salmon, a big, rectangular chunk of Parmesan cheese, mixed salad greens, tomatoes, an overturned salt and pepper set, and some lemons.

‘Internet. Before you ask, um . . .’ Mark rubbed his ear shyly. ‘I _did_ find and use your laptop, and — well, I may have . . . guessed your password. Sorry. Anyway, “b4ckforgood” is not a good password so I changed it,’ he said quickly, suddenly putting an awful lot of effort in grating his cheese.

(Gary quickly scrambled his brain trying to recollect if there was anything embarrassing on his laptop and sighed in relief when he remembered that he had only recently moved all his holiday pics to an external hard drive. There was a rather compromising picture of Gary taking part in a certain _activity_ that would get a lot of people talking if it were ever leaked, so Gary wisely kept his mouth shut.)

‘I left a post-it on your laptop,’ said Mark finally, and he cut his lemons in half and squeezed lemon juice all over the fish. ‘Anyway, the food took a while to arrive so I did a bit of cleaning.’

Gary looked around him. ‘D’you mean the kitchen? I did think it looked different.’

Mark blushed. ‘The whole house, actually. Well, apart from your bedroom. Can you pass me some cutlery?’

‘You know I’m not expecting you to do something in return,’ Gary said, posing it more as a statement than a question. He handed Mark some forks and knives, who motioned to put them on the plates.

‘I know,’ said Mark, moving his plates to the dining table in the middle of the kitchen, ‘I just needed something to keep me busy. Keep me off the streets and all that. Have you got any wine?’

Gary shook his head. ‘Got rid of everything last night. In case you turned out to be an alcoholic. I don’t drink much apart from the occasional nightcap anyway.’

Mark shrugged as if to say “fair enough” and took a seat at the dining table. After they’d both settled down and awkwardly chinked each other’s glasses of apple juice (‘Bon appetite, Mr. Barlow.’ ‘Cheers.’), they ate in near silence. They had almost become accustomed to the sound of their scraping cutlery when Gary decided to cut right to the chase. He didn’t want to potentially ruin this otherwise excellent dinner with a row, but he couldn’t keep his thoughts about the things he’d seen online to himself.

‘I’m gonna be honest with you Mark,’ he said slowly, ‘I, um, looked you up today. Online. For research.’

Surprised, Mark looked up from his half-empty plate. He was saving the salmon for last. ‘All right. Hang on, you didn’t see me naked photoshoots, did you? _In the bath_?’ he added under his breath as though he was talking about some scary character from a horror story.

‘I’ve — yes, I have, but —’ Gary stammered, colouring. God, those photos were obscene.

‘Cheeky bastard.’

‘I know, I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry, but that’s not what I wanted to discuss, mate; it’s — it’s your songs.’

Mark slowly dropped his fork onto his plate. ‘Okay . . .’

‘I think they’re absolutely brilliant, Mark.’

In a brief, undignified moment Mark misplaced his fork, and it ended up on the table with a loud _clatter_ , bits of sauce and salmon flying everywhere. One of Gary’s dogs came trotting towards the table and licked up the pieces of harmless sauce that had ended up on the floor before Gary shooed him away.

‘Are you serious?’ Mark asked, wiping the mess off the table without looking.

‘You’ve not seen me on X Factor, have you?’

‘Too busy lusting for the male dancers on Strictly.’

‘Okay, well, you see, I’m always honest ‘bout these things,’ Gary clarified before stabbing a tomato with his fork. ‘I don’t lie when I hear songs that I like, and I don’t pretend to like artists that I don’t. You can’t survive in the music industry if you think you have to lick everyone’s arse,’ he said before putting his tomato into his mouth.

‘Okay . . . ?’

‘Mark, mate, I genuinely think those songs of yours are ace,’ Gary reiterated when Mark just sort of stared at him. ‘Who did the production on _Into The Wild_?’

‘I did.’

‘I mean, on the finished product?’ Gary asked before finishing the last bit of salmon.

‘That was me,’ Mark repeated. ‘We can’t all be best mates with . . . William Orbit and Max Martin,’ he chided, plucking random producers’ names from thin air.

‘I’ve only worked with Martin once.’

‘Oh, only once . . . !’ cried Mark sarcastically.

Fighting the urge to make a bold comeback, Gary pushed his tongue inside his cheek. He quite liked this cheeky side of Mark.

The boys continued talking about music in this manner long after their plates had been emptied and put into the dishwasher, with Gary trying very hard to compliment Mark’s hard work and Mark then pretending not to be utterly chuffed with it by making constant jokes about the chart positions of _Since I Saw You Last_. (‘It did really well in Croatia!’ ‘I bet it did!’) Of course, what Gary did not know was that Mark blossomed with each compliment, for it’d been a long time since anyone had said anything positive about him. One more compliment and he might actually start believing them to be true. 

Suddenly it was ten o’clock: bedtime. Gary told Mark that he could use the spare room he’d spent the night in previously and that he could borrow old pyjamas of his if he wanted to. They wished each other an awkward goodnight in the hallway after they’d both brushed their teeth and changed and went to their respective bedrooms. Everything proceeded as usual, and ten minutes later Gary crawled into bed in his black shirt and black pyjama bottoms. The drawn curtains still let in tiny strips of light, and a cold but not unpleasant breeze made them dance just slightly. He lay on his side, one hand comfortably underneath his pillow, and he closed his eyes with the ghost of Mark’s voice still ringing in his ear, certain pieces of dialog being played over and over. Embarrassing things that he’d said kept him from dozing off, and it wasn’t until he blocked out the thoughts by focussing on a single lyric of a new song that needed changing that he fell asleep.

Gary had almost entered dream state when a sound woke him up.

Was it an animal? It could be; foxes were known to roam this area.

_So many corridors. Platinum records on the wall. The smell of success, bottled up._

Something told Gary to investigate.

He heard the noise again when he left the warm comforts of his bed and again when he left his master bedroom, and he realised it wasn’t an animal at all.

_He’s walking down these corridors. And then he isn’t anymore._

It was Mark.

Mark was so unpredictable that the noise could have been anything. Perhaps he was watching telly. Perhaps he was asleep, and the sound was merely a snore. Perhaps he talked in his sleep unknowingly, like so many people do. Perhaps – Gary’s heart started beating faster – Mark was having yet another relapse. After all, there was something about the night that makes one more susceptible for negativity. Quite literally, the dark hours of the day could turn off the lights in one’s life. Rob once said that he wrote his saddest songs at night, and Gary didn’t blame him; walking around in his near-empty house now, at two in the morning, was fucking terrifying even if Gary knew he had nothing to be afraid of.

It might have been the sound of Mark harming himself.

_He’s running now, being chased. The lights flicker off one by one, and the corridor stretches out before his very eyes. When he looks over his shoulder, there’s only darkness but for a flickering lightbulb on the ceiling. He blinks and turns around, and there’s that endless corridor again, with its taunting mementos of success._

Now wide awake, Gary started walking a little faster. Within seconds, he was at Mark’s door.

He knocked. No reply.

He knocked again. Still nothing.

Afraid of what he’d find, he opened the door slowly and found Mark tossing and turning in bed.

Mark was having a nightmare. A bad one. The kind you can’t wake up from, clearly, for whatever Gary did – turning on the lights, opening the curtains just so, calling Mark’s name – did nothing to wake the younger man up.

_He puts his right foot forward, and he falls into a recording studio. It’s large, it’s high-tech, and it’s perfect._

_It’s too small._

Wherever he was, Mark needed out.

_A song starts playing. It’s his own, and yet he does not recognize it. Too many things about it have changed._

Gary sat on the edge of the bed like he’d done previously and rested a hand on Mark’s shaking form. ‘Hey, Mark. Wake up, mate,’ he said, rubbing Mark’s shoulder. He was almost glad Mark did not seem to hear him, for his voice sounded weaker than he remembered it being. ‘Come back to us, eh? Don’t leave me hangin’ here.’

_The room starts shrinking. His ex, tall, dark, more handsome than Mark ever thought he was, enters the room to pick something up._

_He doesn’t see him. Doesn’t notice._

_He doesn’t hear Mark’s calls, his warnings. His ex leaves again, and as he does so Mark’s song starts playing louder and louder. Its strings become like nails upon chalkboard. Its melody, too loud. The lyrics, too painful to bear. The ceiling touches Mark’s outstretched hand, and he_

Sitting upright upon waking, Mark emerged out of the dream with a gasp. He looked wildly around him, for a moment forgetting where he was. He was breathing in quick, sparse inhales. There was sweat on his forehead.

‘Hey, you’re safe now,’ said Gary softly. ‘Back in Cheshire with silly old me.’ He gave Mark’s hand a gentle squeeze and smiled when Mark nodded infinitesimally, indicating that _yes, he’s here. He’s safe. He’s with Gary._ When Mark’s breathing had slowed down considerably, he added, ‘Do you need anything? Some water? Tea, perhaps? I’m good at tea.’

Mark shook his head.

‘What was your dream about, then?’ Gary asked, not thinking through that Mark might not want to discuss something so personal.

‘It’s not important,’ said Mark, removing his hand from underneath Gary’s and looking away from him. Within seconds, that invisible wall that he’d kept up for most of his time with Gary so far was back up again, protecting himself from whatever question Gary was firing at him — except the wall wasn’t invisible anymore. It was transparent, and Gary could tell by the way Mark was, well, just by looking at his entire posture, really, that it was all just pretend. His want for solitude was all pretend.

Gary’s smile didn’t waver. ‘Hey, we were doing all right here, you and me. Don’t start bottling things up again. D’you wanna know what _I_ dreamt of tonight?’ he said when Mark didn’t say anything, ‘A Mars bar, about this big –’ He illustrated it with his hands. ‘– _taunting_ me. You know, tempting me to eat it. And then it went and chased me ‘round the house!’

Mark chuckled in spite of himself. ‘You’re making this up.’

‘I’m serious!’ Gary lied. As if for a moment forgetting about his nightmare, Mark was looking at Gary with such amusement in his eyes that Gary decided to just roll with it: ‘It’s interesting, cos I haven’t had chocolate for about three years now. I mean, I love chocolate, me, but I gain about two pounds by just looking at it. I’m kind of tempted to buy dark chocolate cos it’s apparently good for you and everything, but all I keep thinking is, _How will I fit into me suit tomorrow?_ I dream about food about twice a week these days.’

‘Don’t people write dream dictionaries about that shit?’

Gary thought about this. ‘Yeah. They do, don’t they? So, erm, what did _you_ dream about tonight?’ he added slyly.  

‘You’re really curious, aren’t you, Mr.?’

‘Just making sure you’re okay.’

‘Hm.’ Mark rubbed his nose and after a moment’s consideration said, ‘I dreamt about everything ending, I suppose. Like, dyin’, and no-one remembering you. That’s what it felt like. Like I was going to die. T’was at fucking Polydor records as well, on the first floor where they keep all the platinum records.’ He scoffed. ‘Imagine dying there, surrounded by pictures of _you_.’

Gary raised his eyebrows in silent agreement; he didn’t like the vast majority of his album covers.

‘God, I’m such a mess,’ Mark groaned suddenly, covering his face with his hands. ‘Can you believe I once won an online award for _Best Smile_ back in 2014? I was happy once!’

‘I . . . can, actually.’

‘Right, I forgot that you Googled me.’

Gary stayed quiet. He awkwardly stared out of the window until he said – without a second’s thought –: ‘Would you like me to stay with you tonight?’

It was out before he realized it, like a God damn Freudian slip. His temperature raising in pure, unadulterated shame, he started blabbing at the speed of light: ‘What I mean is, I have a writing session for the new album planned tomorrow and I’m gonna be away for quite some time so I’d hate for you to — I — _uh_.’ No longer knowing where that unrehearsed excuse was headed, a dorky squeak escaped Gary’s lips. _Shit_.

Unable to speak, Gary waited for Mark to make a funny remark.

He didn’t.

Instead, Mark just nodded.

‘I’d like that, yeah,’ Mark said, suddenly sounding a little hoarse. He cleared his throat and added nonchalantly, ‘I mean, the room’s freezing and I don’t want to put the heater on, so . . .’ He set about rearranging his pillows. It wasn’t until the pillows were in two neat, horizontal piles behind his back that he spoke again. ‘The bed’s too big for me anyway.’

Mark and Gary stared at each other until Gary realized what Mark had just said. ‘ _Oh_.’

Gary could easily have said no, said that his earlier remark was a joke or a lie. Saying no would have cost Gary no effort at all, and Mark would probably have spent the night without having to get through another nightmare anyway. And, again, under normal circumstances Gary probably would have. He’d have left Mark on his own and returned to his master bedroom across the hallway.

Things at Gary’s stopped being normal a long time ago.

‘Right. Okay. Um, scoot over, I suppose.’

‘Don’t rest your head on that pillow, Barlow, it’s soaked with tears.’

‘No worries, I’ll just — This okay?’

‘Yeah. Someone’s gonna have to turn the lights off, though.’

‘Just press that lil’ button there.’

‘This one here?’

‘No, the other one. D’you mind if I . . . ? You’re right, it’s very cold . . .’

‘No, n-not at all.’

‘You sure? If you’re not comfortable with it, then . . .’

‘No, I am, I am . . .’

‘O-okay.’ Gary nervously pressed his torso against Mark’s back. Warmth spread through Gary’s body upon contact, and it was as though he had never left his bed at all. They were close enough to keep them both warm, but not yet intimate enough for Gary to feel like the Devil himself was going to climb through his window unannounced and send him to hell for sleeping with Rob’s ex.

He was sleeping with Rob’s ex. Fuck.

Cold sweat broke out on Gary’s forehead when he realised he had no idea where to keep his hands. Should he put them on Mark’s sides? Should he touch him at all? Would Mark object to it?

Help?

‘Um, Mark, would you mind if I . . .?’ But Mark’s breathing had already started to slow, and his body became limp as he drifted off slowly.

He smelled good. So good.

The last thing Gary remembered was sliding his hands onto Mark’s belly.

*

**19 October 2015. 07:15** — _Just a warning Rob but I’ve slept with Mark_

**19 October 2015. 07:16** — _I mean I’ve SLEPT with him_

**19 October 2015. 07:18** — _Hang on that looks worse ?_

**19 October 2015. 07:24** — _We shared a bed . Nothing happened but I just thought you should know mate . What with you being his ex and all_

**19 October 2015. 07:26** — _Not that you tell me these ducking things x_

**19 October 2015. 07:28** — _*fucking_

Gary looked at his own hand holding his smartphone, and he realised with shame that he was shaking like a leaf.

The ghost of Mark’s moving, breathing form was still printed on Gary’s body. Mark’s smell was still on his t-shirt.

Mark, with his fluctuating personality and snarky remarks, had turned him into this.

**19 October 2015. 07:33** — _Rob call me please_

*

There was a sharp _ting_ , and two golden brown slices of bread came popping out of the toaster. Gary opened a brand new jar of strawberry preserve, smelled its rich, fruity scent, and put abundant amounts of the red jelly on his hot pieces of toast. He put the kettle on and cheekily enjoyed small amounts of preserve on his spoon while he waited.

Ever since waking up and leaving a sleeping Mark in his bed, Gary had not stopped thinking about what had happened last night. Sure, he and Mark were mates (?) by necessity, and it’s not as though something had happened — but that’s the thing: something _had_ happened. Something had happened that night that seemed like an innocent thing to suggest at the time, but now felt like a complete 180° turn in their relationship.

They were two queer guys with at least one mutual ex, and they had _spooned._

The kettle whistled, and a minute later Gary was pouring hot water into two fancy cups that already had pyramid-shaped tea bags in them. Within seconds, the morning smell of toasted bread was overpowered by the fragrant aroma of chamomile flowers and pineapples. Tea usually reminded Gary of pleasant Sunday mornings spent catching up with his mum, and therefore tea always calmed him down no matter how weird the morning or day had been. For a moment, the smell of tea reassured him that everything was just as it should be. (It’s just a shame that Americans hadn’t quite caught up with it yet.)

‘Mr. Barlow?’ It was Mark.

‘I’m coming,’ said Gary without looking round. He opened a cupboard to his right and got out an old-fashioned pot of sugar. By now, Gary had figured out that Mark liked his tea with one spoonful of sugar, no milk. Gary generally preferred his the other way around. 

But Mark insisted. ‘Um, Gary?’

‘I’ll be right with you, Mar— _Oh_.’ Mark was half-hidden behind the door to the kitchen, and Gary turned scarlet when he saw that the brunette was only wearing a white towel that had been wrapped around his body much lower than it had any right to be. Clearly having just taken a shower, his hair was wet and still carelessly covered in little fluffs of shampoo. His taut, hairless chest had flushed red.

It was a glorious sight.

‘Um, I don’t have any clothes?’ Mark said, vaguely gesturing at himself. ‘Me own trousers are in the washing machine and I got salmon all over your shirt yesterday, so . . .’

Gary’s gaze kept being redirected to the tattoo that peeped out of the top of Mark’s towel, and after much inner persuasion Gary decided to focus on a spot on the door next to Mark’s head. ‘There’s um, some clothes in your room. In the drawer,’ he mumbled, feeling his eyes move lower and lower until he rudely decided to turn his back on Mark. With shaking hands, he poured too much sugar into Mark’s cup of tea. ‘Just pick something you like.’

‘Thanks, Sir. Oh, and, er, I slept great tonight, thanks.’

Gary could feel Mark’s eyes bore into the back of his head, and he cursed himself for wanting to look round. He mustn’t. ‘T-thanks.’ Don’t look round. Don’t look round. ‘I mean, you’re welcome. I guess.’

It wasn’t until Mark left that Gary noticed how hard his heart was pumping inside his chest.

*

Gary still remembered how he and Rob had first met. It was in the late eighties, early nineties, and they were both on the club circuit, gigging everywhere they could but never actually meeting. Gary was best known for his Elton John and ELO covers. Robbie was mostly known for his drunken performances of _Faith_ , bless him, but at least it got him noticed. 

One night, however, there was a _terrible_ misunderstanding: one pub in Manchester had accidentally booked them both, and Rob, who was still very young at the time, wasn’t having any of it. Slightly intoxicated but still capable of rolling out insult after insult, Rob told Gary in a rather rude fashion that he got there first and that Gary would just have to perform at the under 18s next door. (Under 18s usually had decent crowds, but you could never really take anyone home after.)

What followed was a serious argument in which Rob mostly insulted Gary’s dress sense (or lack thereof).

Ten minutes later Rob and Gary were both kicked out of the pub. Word spread quickly that night, and they weren’t allowed to perform at a single establishment anymore. Both needing the money to pay their bills that week, they set aside their differences and started performing on a busy street corner in the middle of Manchester. They got arrested for illegal busking forty minutes later, but they did get to keep the money after Rob decided to flirt with one of the police officers.

Rob and Gary became friends for life that night, and lovers the next (not for life).

They both reached fame more or less simultaneously several years later, albeit in very different ways: Gary hit it off with a manager who promised him loads of money and girls (…) and Rob soared to the top of the charts on the wings of his famous friends.

Gary’s relationships always started like this, with a fight or an argument. It’s as though Gary’s subconscious was trying very hard not to make him fall in love with someone. Unfortunately for him, his heart always found a leeway. A common interest. An unexpected present. Small talk at the coffee machine at Polydor HQ.

A dolphin tattoo that had swum the same uphill stream as he had.


	3. Rewind It Back So I Can Start Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This fic was originally supposed to have five chapters, but I've merged three and four so this is a longer update than usual. Lots of stuff happens in this one.

‘You’re gonna be in so much fucking trouble when you get back, Rob,’ Gary whispered into his phone. Mark was still upstairs getting ready for breakfast (that man was _slow_!) and Robbie had finally gone and picked up his phone. ‘Where the fuck are you, anyway? Do you even _sell_ records in Australia anymore?’

Robbie remained quiet for such a long time that Gary was about to hang up on him when he said, ‘I’m sorry for letting you put up with ‘im, Gaz, I really am, mate, and you’ve every right to be mad at me, all right, but he _needs_ someone. I’m dead serious, mate,’ he added when Gary sighed in a frustrated manner, ‘He’s just a very confused, lost individual right now and if there’s anyone who can help ‘im out, it’s you, Gaz. I’m not doing this on purpose!’

‘I know, Rob. I know. I think we’ve moved past that stage now,’ Gary said, closing his eyes for a moment as if in painful remembrance.

‘So what’s the problem? You two seemed quite friendly in your texts from this morning. I don’t blame you, by the way.’ He sounded like he was smiling. Bordering on laughing, in fact.

But Gary didn’t find it as funny. ‘ _Ugh_. I wish I hadn’t told you that.’

‘You sound a lil’ frustrated.’

Gary stared at the plates of breakfast on the kitchen counter. The toast had gone gold in Mark’s absence so he had eaten it all by himself. ‘Let me put it this way, Rob,’ he said, mindlessly fingering the edges of the plates, ‘It’d be easier if your mate was less attractive.’

‘ _Oh_!’

‘Yeah,’ said Gary, feeling guilty. Afraid of being overheard, he closed the kitchen door. ‘It’s those bloody pictures of him. I can’t get them out of my head, mate.’ Rob hummed in agreement, which wasn’t helping. ‘And then he has these _fucking_ nightmares about what he’s been through, and he’s alone and scared in the middle of the night so I stay with him so that — well, you know what, I’ve no idea why I did it, Bob, but I haven’t stopped thinking ‘bout it since.

‘And I feel guilty cos _you’ve_ been with him and I don’t wanna ruin whatever you had going on, but I don’t know if I’m gonna be capable of not falling for him, I really don’t. I mean, he went through the same thing as me, for Christ’s sake, I’ve never—’ Gary paused, realization dawning on him. Could Rob have been planning this all along? Would Rob really be that cruel? ‘Hang on, are you trying to hook us up?’

Rob’s silence told Gary everything he needed to know. ‘You _bastard_. Does Mark know?’

‘Look, Gaz,’ said Rob, suddenly sounding like he was in a hurry, ‘Just do me a favour and take him . . . _sdhedhdghdwenjoy_. . . record . . . _studioasderyewyter_  . . .’

‘Take him where!?’ Gary shouted into his phone before a _bleep_ told him that Rob had hung up, the cheeky sod.

‘Fucking typical,’ Gary muttered under his breath, cursing the day he had ever met Rob. He should’ve known this was just one of his mate’s ridiculous attempts at being a matchmaker. Angry, he shoved his phone into his trouser pocket and started when he saw Mark standing behind him.

‘Who were you just talking to?’ Mark asked Gary innocently. He was wearing a pair of trousers that was slightly too big for him, and a blue hoodie that Gary had bought in New York and had only cost about twenty dollars. He was drying his wet hair with a towel. There was a fresh, awake expression on his face.

Gary had no idea how long Mark had been standing there.

Confused and terrified, Gary stared at the phone in his hand. What the fuck was he supposed to say to him? ‘I, um, was talking to . . . me manager, I was. On the phone, obviously. We were . . . um . . . discussing . . . ’

Mark pressed his lips together. Gary was so busy coming up with a lame-arse excuse that he didn’t notice that Mark was trying incredibly hard not to laugh.

Suddenly, the meaning behind Rob’s white noise message was starting to become clear. His heart beating fast, Gary said, ‘Would you . . . like to join me in my studio today, Mark?’

Mark smiled his best smile yet.

*

The cracks started to show when Mark’s ex complained that his music equipment was taking up too much space.

Mark didn’t even own that many instruments, really; there was the old keyboard that had been pushed into a corner, yes, and his very first guitar that was gathering dust in the bedroom, and of course, his unsold records, but other than that Mark only ever made music on his laptop. He’d love to be able to afford new editing software, better microphones and, finally, a Tenori-on, but even with _Into The Wild_ selling relatively well he still wasn’t able to pay his bills.

Clearly the stories of artists who were able to pay off debts and buy houses on the back of a single successful track were complete bollocks. Stuff like that just didn’t happen. (Unless you were Robbie Williams. Lucky bastard.)

On top of it all, his ex was a good-for-nothing little bastard who worked part-time at a shop and spent all his money on cigarettes. Mark loved him, _God_ , did he love him – and no doubt did his ex love him back –, but they both just had too many flaws.

His laptop was the most expensive thing Mark owned, and it was chock full of vaguely named soundbites and demos that were scattered across 36 different folders. It didn’t come as a surprise, then, that the only time Mark had been ever in a studio was at the start of his career. The record label had booked the entirety of Abbey Road for him and it was the best thing Mark had ever experienced. Everyone who was anyone had walked these corridors, and now Mark had too.

‘Put your coat on, Marko—wen,’ Gary corrected himself, the cordial _Marko_ almost slipping out of his mouth. He put their empty plates into the dishwasher, turned the device on and started towards the entrance hall, Mark following him around like a lost duck.

‘You mean you don’t have a studio here?’ He sounded rather disappointed.

‘ _Nah._ ‘Sides, I do most of the production on me laptop these days, anyway.’ He handed Mark his coat. ‘Shall we?’

Ten minutes later, Gary stepped into the back of his car for the umpteenth time that week. He’d been doing so much travelling lately that Gary wasn’t even sure what day it was anymore.

Gary’s chauffeur looked at Mark suspiciously but opened the door for him anyway, and off they went when everyone was buckled up. For the first fifteen minutes of their journey, the boys said nothing. The car being very big on the inside, they sat about an arm’s length away, with Mark slipping further down his large seat with every bump.

It’s not that Gary didn’t want to talk to Mark, it’s just that he didn’t know where to _start_. He still had dozens of questions flooding his brain for brief intervals, nagging and nagging him until he decided to focus on a brand new song or set of lyrics in his head. But then he’d forget how the song sounded, and a new set of questions entered his thoughts: What did Mark think of him? How had Mark and Rob met? How had Mark managed to get his debut single to sound so bloody good? It was quite distracting, being with Mark!

Most of all he just wished to know more about Mark himself. He got that Mark had been through a tough time and that talking about his private life was hard, but there were plenty of other things they could talk about, like the current state of pop or something.

Mark sat a little straighter, readjusted his belt and opened his coat button for button, and Gary saw his belly move in the rise and fall of his breath.

_Oh._

Right before Gary fell asleep last night he found himself, rather creepily perhaps, listening to Mark breathing. There was an element of comfort in the constant rhythm of his in- and exhales.

In the way Mark’s belly rose against his hand, Gary recognized a pattern. A melody.

Gary had not been intimate with someone like that for years, romantically or otherwise, and he found himself trying to trivialize every single thing about it so that his feelings eventually became trivial too. The delicious smell of Mark’s hair was just Gary’s favourite strawberry shampoo from Waitrose. The fabric that Gary was grasping was just one of his own T-shirts. Mark was just an acquaintance. In these circumstances, sharing a bed was normal.

Except it wasn’t.

Back in the car, Gary’s mind was overwhelmingly flooded by one strange thought after another; thoughts he should definitely not be having! Feeling like music might help him focus on the day ahead, he pressed a button on his right and turned on the car radio.

This was a bad decision.

_. . . we must be in siiight of the dream . . ._

Remembering that Mark didn’t listen to him much, Gary pressed the button for the next station.

_. . . cos IIIIII need tiiiiime . . ._

‘God,’ groaned Mark.

NEXT.

A woman’s voice. ‘Coming up next is the first play of Gary Barlo—’

Gary jabbed the OFF button with his thumb and pinched the bridge of his nose. His face burning up, he glanced at Mark to see that the brunette was staring at his hands. Arrogantly, Gary wondered what it must feel like for Mark to be lodging with someone so successful when _his_ career had been so fruitless.

Then he remembered that they were both friends with Robbie Williams, and he tossed the big-headed thought out of his head. When Gary was struggling to get his songs sold to artists with less disastrous careers, Robbie was selling out entire stadiums. _Tsk_.

Mark sighed. ‘I’d forgotten how popular you are. I heard me solo single at Thortons one day and I nearly choked on a fruit scone,’ he said, deadpan. A chuckle escaped Gary’s lips, but he effortlessly covered it up with a pretend coughing fit when he saw that Mark wasn’t smiling. ‘Do you get used to this? You know, do you still feel a thrill when you hear your songs?’ The questions sounded somewhat accusatory.

‘Of course I do. It’s a cracking feeling, hearing your songs on the radio. Why should I experience it any differently?’ Gary said inconsiderately.

Mark scoffed at this. ‘Cos you’re super successful?’

‘It wasn’t always like this, you know,’ Gary pointed out.

So interested was Gary’s chauffeur in the boys’ sudden conversation that he narrowly missed a cyclist. The cyclist lost his balance and gestured a two-fingered salute at the car when he got back up.

Mark rolled his eyes. ‘Sure, Mr. Barlow. I bet you were born rolling in song royalties.’

Gary stared at Mark, dumbstruck. ‘What, you don’t _know_?’

‘Know what?’

The car stopped on a quiet street in front of a five-storey building, and Mark ignored Gary to look out of the window. With its red sandstone exterior and many round headed windows, the building they were in front of looked more like a former warehouse or office building than a recording studio. At the other end of the street there was an eclectic mix of modern and Edwardian Baroque-style houses, with a yellow tram passing just overhead; perhaps the studio was there, amidst the busy crowd.

A cloud passed, turning the soft reds of the street into a darker hue. A rumbling sound announced the arrival of a thunderstorm, and there was the comforting _tat tat tat_ of rain drops hitting the car windows. A woman in a long, black coat opened her umbrella and started walking a little faster.

The chauffeur reminded the boys that they had arrived, but they weren’t listening.

‘What _do_ you know about me?’ Gary pushed Mark.

Mark shrugged. ‘That you’re a successful singer-songwriter? Honestly, I didn’t read your Wikipedia page before coming here.’

The chauffeur was shuffling in his seat. ‘Sir, there’s a double yellow line . . .’

‘You mean you don’t know what happened in ’99?’

‘I’m not a fan of yours, am I?’ Mark exclaimed, frustrated.

In the past ten-odd years, Gary had never met a single individual who didn’t _know_. It was never brought up by anyone, but the question was ever-present in journalists’ eyes, even today, like an ink stain on an expensive jacket. The press loved a success story, but they loved a fall from grace even more.

And Mark genuinely didn’t have a clue.

After a gentle kicking-out by Gary’s chauffeur, the boys braced the rain and half-ran into the red building overhead. A notice with a list of famous companies and double-barrelled tenants outside the door told Mark that it was an office building with a very rich clientele, and his expectations sky-rocketed. They were actually going into a proper studio!

For a time distracted by the office building’s magnificent reception, Mark distractedly jogged after Gary. Gary had already pressed the button for the lift and looked impatient for their ride to arrive.

Mark ran his fingers through his wet brown hair, and Gary had to stare at the high ceiling. Couldn’t Rob have sent him a less attractive friend?

‘What does it matter if I’ve memorized your entire discography or not?’ Mark asked gently, still not understanding.

‘I’ll show you,’ said Gary, pressing the button again as though that might hurry the lift up. Two seconds later the lift arrived with a reassuring _ping_ , and the boys got in. The lift moving faster than its old-fashioned interior would have you believe, Mark and Gary arrived at the top floor in a jiffy. The lift door opened, revealing an empty corridor and a locked door with a digital lock. Gary swiped it open with a card, and they slowly walked into the most beautiful studio Mark had ever seen.

Stretching out over the entire top floor, the packed studio was big enough to house a small concert — and it had all the required instruments, too: a drum set, five different types of keyboards, a djembe, chimes, two snare drums, a trumpet, a violin, two triangles, and even Rob’s former guitar! (Mark recognised it, for it had Rob’s autograph on it.) In the middle of the organized chaos of instruments there was a large, open space – a lounge, as it were – paved with parquet and fancy carpets. The area was furnished with comfortable chairs and sofas, with four or five doors leading into different areas. In a wall on their right there was a large, rectangular window that overlooked a large office with a mixing desk and a recording booth. In the corner of his eyes, Mark saw a kitchen. And a piano! It had a piano!

‘What’s all this stuff doing locked away in an old Edwardian office building?’ Mark asked, his fingers gently brushing the keys of a massive piano.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Gary, watching Mark inspect every single object with interest. ‘You wouldn’t know there’s a recording studio in this place by just looking at it.’

‘I’m guessing that’s the point.’

‘Yeah. No more fans knocking on the door every minute . . . ’

Mark put his hands on his sides and took a minute to inspect some of the platinum records on the walls before he said, ‘You said you had something to show me?’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Gary, remembering. ‘You’re gonna love this,’ he said with a dorky attempt at a wink, and he motioned Mark to follow him into a door on their left.

‘Is it more instruments?’

‘Better than that.’

‘How can it be better than _this?_ I’m seeing instruments I’d have to sell me house for to afford . . .’

A short walk later, the boys arrived at a small, barely lit storage room that wasn’t as furnished as the rest of the studio, and Mark stopped in his tracks in the doorway. In front of him was half a dozen — no, more — a dozen piles of box after box, filled to the brim with —

‘My, erm, cancelled studio album from 2001,’ Gary explained, seeing Mark’s confused look. He opened the nearest box and handed Mark one of his CDs. Mark accepted it reluctantly. ‘I now sell them for ten quid a pop at gigs. They’re a bit of a collector’s edition, these things. The music’s not very good, though. Very dated. You should hear the lyrics, you’d think I wrote these songs in five minutes. Well, I wrote _Back For Good_ in five minutes, but that’s not the point . . .’ he added as an afterthought.

Mark turned the CD over in his hand. The front cover featured a much younger Gary, clean shaven and with much more hair, walking down a beach barefoot. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

Gary sighed resignedly. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

Mark gesticulated as though saying _Of course I don’t_.

‘Right. This album here was supposed to come out in 2001,’ Gary explained. ‘I’d done everything on me own for this one, songwriting, production . . . I think I even tried playing the trumpet at one point, but that didn’t go so well. Anyway, the music industry’s changing, everything’s a bit cheesier, less credible than it is these days, and me single comes out and it flops,’ he said, the modest smile on his face not suiting his story. Either he’d told it a thousand times, or he’d simply found peace with it.

Gary went on, ‘And the album’s already been sent to the publisher, and the next day the record label sits me down and tells me they’re dropping me!’

‘What’d you do?’

‘Bought back every copy I could find and became unemployed, really. I went to every artist I could find, _begging_ them to work with me, but all it took was one unsuccessful single, and no-one wanted to have anything to do with me anymore.’ The smile on his face was fading. ‘And then you hit rock bottom, and you begin to wonder whether all the success was just a smokescreen for all the other shit that was going on in your life.’

Mark swallowed. ‘You too, huh?’

‘Yeah. How do you think I knew what to do when you . . . you know?’ Gary scratched the back of his head. He’d never told anyone this, let alone alluded to it.

‘When I was sick all over your bathroom?’

‘Hm.’

Mark considered Gary for a moment. He could tell that Gary didn’t want to talk about it anymore, but he was glad that Gary had. Knowing that someone like Gary had been where he was now made the light at the end of the tunnel shine brighter. Indeed, perhaps all it took was just was a bit of rotten luck.

He looked at the CD in his hand again, hesitated, and said, ‘Maybe they canned it cos of the album cover? I mean, that hair . . .’

Gary chuckled. ‘Yeah, maybe.’ He then told Mark about his rise back to fame five years later, when a new, benevolent manager finally saw him as an artist with potential rather than a number on a chart. It had, Gary said, completely turned his life around.

‘Mind you, I can’t wait to leave this label. It’s been nearly ten years and they still don’t know how to run my fucking website. I don’t think they’ve updated it since my latest single was sent to radio three months ago.’

Mark raised his eyebrows. ‘You’d leave a big label like that?’

Gary nodded. They had taken a seat in front of the studio’s large mixing desk, with Gary occasionally livening up their serious conversation by playing new demos that he was proud of. ‘That’s a backing track I did two weeks ago,’ Gary said when an up-tempo, synthy sort of track faded into nothingness. ‘It’s a bit different from me usual stuff so I’m thinking ‘bout giving it to Bob. And would I leave this label? God, yeah,’ he said. ‘I mean, Christ, they made me do a Christmas album! Never again.’

Mark’s fingers hovered over some very tempting buttons on the mixing desk. He wondered what would happen if he pressed them. ‘I still can’t believe that I didn’t know that you, well, you know. That’d you’d been dropped too.’ He decided not to press the tempting buttons and put his hands inside the pockets of his NYC hoodie. ‘This changes things.’

Gary spun his seat towards Mark’s. ‘Changes things how?’

‘Dunno. I just have a feeling.’ Mark shrugged, but when he finally met Gary’s searching eyes he didn’t seem so uncertain. ‘Must’ve been hard, though,’ he said, sitting on his desk chair a little more comfortably, ‘Not being able to afford your lights—’

‘Don’t say it!’

‘—switches.’ Mark grinned mischievously. ‘What, did you think I was gonna say lightsaber?’

‘God knows how Rob has put up with you for so many years,’ said Gary, getting up. It was hard to tell whether he was blushing in the low lighting inside the studio, but Mark had a feeling he was. ‘Shall we play some songs of yours?’

‘But I haven’t got any. _With_ me, I mean. I haven’t got any with me.’

‘You can still play them on the guitar, can’t you?’ Gary pointed out. An acoustic guitar was conveniently placed next to a speaker set, and Gary went and got it for him.

‘I’ll need a hat,’ said Mark. ‘I can’t perform without one.’

Gary handed Mark the guitar. Its paint had gone off. ‘You look better without one, trust me.’

‘Is that a personal preference or a remark about my good looks?’ Mark smiled. He sat a little straighter and held the back of the guitar so that it was resting on his lap. The guitar tilted comfortably against his abdomen, Mark patiently tuned the instrument while Gary thought of a non-embarrassing way to reply to his previous comment.

‘Er. Both,’ said Gary finally. He was definitely blushing, but Mark decided to ignore it.

‘Good. Any requests, Mr. Barlow?’

‘You can stop calling me that now, Mark.’

‘Hm. Sad song, then?’ Mark suggested, searching Gary’s eyes as though looking for a clue. ‘Yeah, let’s do a sad song.’

Gary opened his mouth to argue, but Mark had already started playing. He sounded a bit rusty at first, out of tune almost, but after a few seconds he got into it and the false notes turned into a pleasant melody. Then that raspy, cigarette-affected voice came out, and Gary changed his tune about Mark altogether: ‘ _I listened to your album and I watched your favourite film, hey, hey, hey, I missed you today_ — _I read those early letters that were filled with early dreams, some of them materialised, others never seen . . .’_ etcetera.

Mark, who was busy looking at his own fingers, had no idea that Gary was staring at him with his mouth open. He ended up performing the entire song, and when he was finished Gary gave him a sweet one-man applause.

‘That was brilliant, mate,’ Gary complimented him, meaning it. ‘Is this about your ex?’ he asked without thinking.

Mark smiled a little at that. ‘One of them.’

‘Did you ever record it?’

‘I was going to, but I think everyone ran out of money at that point. Anyway, I wrote it years ago, so it don’t really matter,’ Mark mumbled. ‘T’was only going to be a B-side to me third single anyway. I didn’t even know people still did B-sides.’

Gary jerked his head to the recording booth. ‘I have the studio for five hours today and all I need to do is put down some BVs, so . . . You know, if you wanna.’

Gary couldn’t help it, but he was really, really starting to like Mark. Forgetting about his connections with Rob for a second, Mark was an individual who not only shared his love for music but shared some of the pain that went with being in the music industry. Mark _understood_ what it was like to suddenly be at the bottom of the proverbial food chain, and Gary understood more than anything how frustrating it was not to be able to do anything with the ideas in your head.

It also helped that just _looking_ at Mark gave Gary heart palpitations that had little to do with how good the brunette sounded. Had they met in a conventional manner, Gary would probably already have made a move on him.

Then again, perhaps he already had.

Mark’s eyes almost _shone_. ‘Are you sure?’                                                         

‘I guess we’ll find out. Go on,’ Gary said, jerking his head to the booth again.

Mark made a movement to get up — and hesitated. ‘Are you just doing this to be nice? Cos you wanna be _mates_?’

‘No.’

Mark rolled his eyes. ‘You are, aren’t ya?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself, Mark,’ Gary stuttered. ‘Get in there before I make you.’

‘You have awful bedside manners,’ Mark said before getting up and giving Gary’s shoulder a squeeze.

Mark’s first studio session with Gary – we say first, because there were many more to follow – was short and sweet. Mark’s determination was such that he laid down the perfect vocals within minutes. With Mark sent away to the lounge so that there would be an element of surprise when he heard back his track for the first time, Gary did some cutting and editing on his laptop. Fifteen minutes later, a brand new track was born that would one day no longer remind Mark of his exes, but of Gary trying so very hard to make him happy.

The track, a mid-tempo pop song that was, indeed, bordering on melancholic, perfectly blended Mark’s vocals with a recent backing track that Gary had saved for a rainy day. He added a sprinkle of Mark’s imperfect guitar playing and turned up Mark’s vocals a notch, and ‘Here we are. _What Am I To Say_?’ said Gary when he joined Mark on the sofa in the lounge. He was smiling smugly at his laptop screen. It showed a lot of multi-coloured, overlapping bars that meant a lot to Mark and Gary, but perhaps meant nothing to someone who knows nothing about music.

‘We are _not_ calling it that,’ Mark argued.

‘Okay, fine. _Alone Without You_ , then. Shall we have a listen?’

Mark pressed his lips together. ‘I’m not sure if I want to, to be honest. What if you’ve turned it into some — some . . .’ He moved his hands in the air, fishing for a noun or adjective that he thought best described his incorrect interpretation of Gary’s music.

‘Don’t worry,’ Gary reassured him, ‘The production is better than _I Found Heaven_ ’s.’

‘I don’t even know what that means.’

‘You really know nothing about my music, do you?’

Mark shook his head. ‘I’ll look you up on your laptop tonight, how ‘bout that? Are there any photoshoots I should be warned against? I’m joking, I’m joking,’ he added when Gary closed the lid of his laptop as a precaution. He slapped the back of his hand against Gary’s arm in jest. ‘Play the song, c’mon. Let’s have it.’

Gary opened his laptop again and pressed PLAY.

Gary still remembered when he first heard a fully mixed version of one of his own songs for the first time. Like the Gary Barlow in a universe parallel to this story’s, Gary entered a Christmas song competition at the young age of fifteen. Despite his awful haircut, he made it all the way to the semi-finals and was eventually invited to a studio in London where he recorded his song for real. It was the best day of his life thus far, and little did he know that many similar days were yet to come.

When he listened back to the recording of his own song later that day, he was so overcome with emotion that he accidentally stumbled into a very expensive drum set.

When Mark’s song finished so, so many years later, Mark was so overcome with emotion that he slung his arms around Gary’s neck and kissed him on the cheek. Repeatedly. ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ he cried, and he kissed Gary again.

Gary, who had for a moment become a caricature of a man who wasn’t used to being hugged or kissed by attractive men, awkwardly patted Mark on the back. He caught a faint whiff of Mark’s natural scent, and he cursed Rob again and again for making all this happen.

‘You’re looking very hot, Mr.,’ Mark said when he had finally let go of Gary. ‘You all right?’ he said with the sincerity of someone who had just caught a mate in the middle of picking their nose.

‘So, er, you like the song, then?’ said Gary, trying to shift the focus away from him. God knows Mark’s hug was a spur-of-the-moment thing, a thank-you, something completely and utterly ordinary — and yet it wasn’t. It didn’t _feel_ like it was. It felt like more; a kick-starter, an ignited fuse on a bomb filled with ticker tape and confetti.

He knew it was sad, but it was the first hug Gary had had in a long time, and he’d probably do it again and again if Mark desired as such. It was making him feel giddy and excited and silly, and _God_ , was he going to give Rob a good talking-to when he got home.

‘. . . would like the guitar to be turned up a little bit more, if you know what I mean? Hang on, are you actually listening to me?’

A snap of Mark’s fingers brought Gary back to the present day. He had very rudely zoned out.

‘Sorry, I was thinking about . . . dinner,’ was Gary’s excuse.

‘It’s eleven in the morning.’

‘I really like dinnertime.’

‘Anyway,’ Mark said with a surrendering sigh, ‘I really love the song, thanks again.’ He made a movement to give Gary’s shoulder a grateful pat, but he swerved and pretended to stretch when Gary looked at him. He glanced at the clock on the wall behind them. ‘Are you going to take long recording those BVs of yours?’

Gary shook his head. He still looked a little flustered. ‘Twenty minutes, max.’

‘D’you mind if I borrow your laptop for a sec? I, um, I’d like to see whether I’ve got any e-mails from the record company,’ Mark lied. ‘Maybe they’ve . . . changed their minds or something,’ he added unconvincingly.

Gary naively handed Mark his laptop and got up. ‘I won’t be long.’

*

When Gary came back twenty-five minutes later (he’d recorded some BVs for a demo of a song that Leona Lewis was keen on having), Mark was busy typing on his laptop.

‘Got important e-mails, then, eh?’ Gary asked innocently. Not feeling like sitting on the sofa in case Mark kissed him on the cheek again and he got a stroke, Gary sat on a comfortable chair opposite him. Impatient to head home, he listlessly drummed his fingers on the armrest while he waited for Mark to finish the important thing that he was obviously doing.

Mark smiled at Gary’s laptop mischievously. ‘No, but I did find . . . _this_!’ He dramatically turned around the laptop.

‘That’s a picture of a cat,’ Gary pointed out.

‘Ah. Gimme a sec.’ Mark turned the laptop away from the singer-songwriter and started typing very fast, like a hacker in an exciting conspiracy drama. He clicked the mouse pad demonstratively. ‘Here we go.’

The screen faced Gary again.

It showed a very old picture of Gary in quite a compromising position.  

‘Jesus Christ, Mark.’

‘Now, this would have made for a _much_ better album cover, don’t ya think?’ Mark said, clearly loving the embarrassed look that had all of a sudden transformed Gary’s face.

‘Click that away, Owen.’

‘ _Ooh_ , getting grumpy, are we? Is this one more your style?’ Mark clicked one of the arrow keys, and the photo was replaced by an even more embarrassing one. It looked like an early 90s budget equivalent of an Attitude photoshoot. It featured very few clothes.

Gary had been rendered utterly speechless.

Mark’s eyes were positively twinkling. He was _loving_ this. ‘The composition is quite good, innit, Mr. Barlow? But not as good as—’

‘Nooo!’ Gary sprang up as though electrocuted and almost jumped over to where Mark was sat. Unfortunately for him, Mark had already closed the laptop and put it behind his back like an uncomfortable pillow.

‘Mark, _give it back_ ,’ Gary demanded, hands on his hips to impose dominance.  

Mark bit his lip and gave Gary a not-so-subtle once-over. ‘What were you planning to do about it?’

Gary swallowed. ‘I . . .’

There was a tangible, almost electrifying tension in the air that had nothing to do with the fact that Mark had effectively stolen Gary’s laptop. It was not dissimilar to those frantic seconds before performing a new song to millions of viewers, when the thrill to do something new and exciting was stronger than the nerves. It spurred Gary on and energised him, and God knows that Mark’s posture on that sofa – teasing, persuasive – was spurring him on too.

But to do what, Gary did not know.

‘ _Give it back_ ,’ Gary demanded, the crack in his voice unfortunately not disguising his nerves.

‘Only if you show me your Star Wars collection,’ Mark teased. He looked up at Gary with his blue eyes then, with all their faked innocence, and for a second Gary saw in his mind’s eye how he would simply _make_ Mark give back his laptop.

Then Mark fluttered his eyelashes, and the image disappeared.

Gary had a sinking feeling that this wasn’t going to be the only time Mark would talk him into doing something.  

‘I regret the day I ever met you,’ said Gary, not meaning it.

The boys returned to Gary’s bachelor pad an hour after their shared recording session. True to Gary’s word – or rather, thanks to Mark twisting his arm –, he showed Mark his much coveted private collection of Star Wars memorabilia once they’d had a quick snack in the kitchen.

(Unfortunately Gary’s collection is still so shrouded in secrecy that an entire paragraph describing said collection has disappeared, making it impossible to tell you, the reader, what Mark saw that day.)

Although Gary technically had the day off, he spent most of the afternoon on the phone with journalists. The release date of his new album was getting closer and closer, and popular websites and publications were very keen on getting _that_ exclusive quote about this or that song’s meaning. Regrettably Gary lived quite a boring life when not posing as the disgruntled owner of a B &B, so the next day the Official Charts website posted a headline titled _Gary Barlow: ‘Latest single is about cake I had two years ago’_.

Mark, meanwhile, did some more cleaning in the absence of Gary’s butler, and suddenly it was dinnertime. A spicy plate of healthy, non-takeaway noodles and some telly-viewing later, the boys were preparing for bed. Tomorrow Gary was scheduled to perform at a brand new music festival that was to be broadcast all over the world via the magic of the internet, so he and his vocal chords badly needed the rest.

He’d been doing a lot of that lately, performing at festivals. Two years ago the mere thought of performing to a crowd of people who might not even be there to see him terrified him, but now he wanted to do nothing but. (He really needed the money.)

Under normal circumstances, Gary’s night-time routine was usually the same. He’d have a nightcap downstairs, get changed, brush his teeth and maybe watch some telly if he couldn’t sleep immediately. He’d always turn off the lights at precisely the same time. This routine was in fact so ingrained in his body that he generally woke up between 6 and 7 in the morning, followed by a quick jog on his estate. But of course today’s weren’t normal circumstances, and he quickly put on his tight, black nightshirt when he heard Mark knocking on the door of his bedroom.

When Gary opened the door, Mark was already dressed in his pyjamas.

‘Everything all right?’ Gary asked drowsily.

‘Oh, yeah, it’s just, well . . .’ Mark scratched his elbow. ‘It’s just, I’m not feeling so good,’ he said, sounding like a teenager trying to convince their gullible parents that they were too sick to go to school tomorrow. As per usual, Gary didn’t pick up on it. Indeed, Gary didn’t pick up on a lot of things when his mind was already half-thinking about what he should wear for the festival tomorrow. (He was tempted to go for the usual suit and tie, but his stylist reckoned that a casual black tee and trouser combo was far more suitable for the environment he’d be performing in.)

‘Is it serious? D’you wanna talk about it?’

Mark shook his head. ‘Oh no, it’s just, it’s been such an emotional day, and, _you know_ ,’ he explained vaguely, leaving Gary to wrongly interpret what he was talking about.

Gary, remembering how soundly Mark had slept last night but forgetting for a moment how hot and bothered it had made _him_ feel, waved his hand in the general direction of his bed. ‘Do you wanna — I mean, you can stay here for the night if you want? If, er, it makes you feel better?’

‘Oh, it’s no big deal . . .’

‘I’m serious, mate, the bed’s too big for me, anyway.’

‘Really, it’s fine . . .’

The conversation went on like this for a few minutes, with Gary pretending very hard that he was totally cool with sharing a bed with Mark (he did stuff like that _all the time_ . . . !), and Mark acting innocent and all _Oh, bless you, Gary, but you don’t have to do this, honestly . . . oh no_ — _cough_ — _really, I’m all right . . . I’ll just go to bed on me own . . ._

Mark eventually “gave in”, and Gary said he’d join him in bed after he’d brushed his teeth. Gary spent a suspiciously long time doing so.

‘Are you coming or what?’ sounded Mark’s voice. (Gary’s bedroom was partitioned to contain a large ensuite bathroom, so they could talk.)

Gary had been so busy trying to control his breathing that he’d totally neglected brushing his teeth. Why was being with Mark making him feel so goddamn nervous? ‘Oh. Y-yeah. Won’t be a minute,’ he stuttered. He quickly brushed his teeth and found himself staggering back to his bedroom, he was that terrified.

‘Are you okay? You look a ‘lil pale,’ said Mark.

‘‘M fine, just nervous for tomorrow is all. Turn that bedside lamp off, will you?’

Mark did as he was told. He wordlessly told Gary to spoon him by turning his back to him, and Gary did so without arguing after he’d turned off the rest of the lights.

_This was fine. Totally fine._

It was bloody cold, so Mark didn’t resist when Gary wrapped his left arm around his waist. Like last night, they were close without being too close. Intimate but amicable. Their bodies were touching, but without it being sensual or – God forbid – sexual. It was perfect like this. Like this, their eyes would never meet, and Gary would never have the urge to kiss him.

He wanted to kiss him. Crap.

‘Comfy?’ Gary asked Mark after a couple of seconds of getting used to each other’s bodies again. Gary’s right arm would no doubt feel numb and asleep in the morning and his pillow was askew underneath his head, but other than that he felt all right. Comfortable and at ease. At ease, mostly because Mark’s body fit too well here, like their bodies were made for each other. Gary’s body was broad and strong, Mark’s, small and, well, just very pleasant for lying against, really.

‘No, hang on,’ Mark groaned, ‘Lemme just . . .’

Gary felt Mark shuffle next to him – much like an indecisive cat who couldn’t find the right position to sit in – and he had to press his lips together when Mark’s arse rubbed against his crotch by accident. It lasted only a tantalizing second, but it was enough to send Gary into metaphorical cardiac arrest. Gary hadn’t been thinking about Mark _in that way_ before (really, he hadn’t), but now his mind’s eye was being overwhelmingly dominated by pictures of him and Mark doing things that he definitely should not be thinking about while they were sharing a bed.

Worse still, Gary was pretty sure Mark was lying in the same position as before.

‘That’s better,’ said Mark innocently, and he closed his eyes.

Now that Mark had settled, Gary could think about what this moment meant. Or rather, he tried his hardest to make it seem less important than his racing heart was making it seem. Perhaps they _were_ just two individuals who had different reasons for needing someone to hold in the dark. Perhaps one day soon, Mark would find a place to call home elsewhere, and he’d be no more than a blip, a single face in a festival crowd that for a time caught Gary’s attention more than the rest.

But then why did Gary let his hands slide underneath the hem of Mark’s shirt until his palm was flat on Mark’s stomach? Why did he want to pull him closer and closer until they were no more than a tangle of arms and legs? Why did the conversations he’d had with Mark keep ringing in his ears like a song that he’d written, even now? Why was his desire to touch Mark intimately fast becoming stronger than his desire to keep Mark safe? Why Mark? Why not the handsome intern at Polydor? Why, indeed, not anyone else, someone who was far less complicated and broken up into tiny puzzle pieces like Mark?

Only barely conscious of what his hands were doing, Gary rubbed the skin around Mark’s belly button with his thumb until Mark made a noise that was impossible to interpret.

‘Um,’ Gary squeaked, ‘Are you all right with me doing this or . . . ?’

But Mark nodded in the dark, and the unfamiliar sound turned into a satisfied little _mm_. ‘It’s nice. Very.’ With that, his breathing slowed and steadied.

Assuming that Mark had dozed off, Gary kissed the back of Mark’s head until he, too, slept.

*

The next few days were a pleasant blur, like the comfortable lull brought on by a single glass of wine at the end of a dinner party, stretched out over a long weekend spent with friends and loved ones. Rather predictably, the boys became more and more friendly towards one another as time went on. Gary continued making breakfast each morning and he always gave Mark an extra piece of toast as a token of how much he liked having Mark around. In the evenings, Mark would make dinner if Gary’s tight schedule allowed it (sometimes he came home at two in the morning), and they’d spend hours just laughing and talking over empty plates and glasses. Most of the time, they talked about music. More recently, they’d started talking about their private lives. About happiness and depression and everything in between. The boys being boys, the elephant in the room was never discussed but always thought about.

Over time, coming home to Gary’s stranger from Oldham was becoming something to look forward to. Even when he’d had a shit day pandering to the wishes of his record label, he’d feel all right because he had Mark, and Mark had him. Nothing Gary did in broad daylight mattered anymore because his time spent with Mark in the nights and evenings mattered so much more.

Mark never left the house for reasons that Gary didn’t understand, but Mark did catch the entirety of one of Gary’s live concerts on a famous music streaming service one evening. Afterwards, Mark told Gary that he thought Gary talked a bit too much in between songs but that ‘the production was very good’. He also liked the medley that Gary did.

‘What was the second song in the medley called? The one with the . . .?’ Mark made a vague gesture with his hands that in his mind represented a certain piece of Gary’s music. It was very late, and he was sitting at the kitchen table with Gary’s laptop in front of him. Gary had come home only ten minutes ago and was still giddily high on his very first Roundhouse concert as if he had just had an excellent orgasm.

‘You mean _Nobody Else_?’ Gary said after a moment’s thought. For some reason _Nobody Else_ seemed like a very fitting song to sing that night. It was cheesy, yes, but God did it encapsulate how he had been feeling lately. 

‘Yeah, that one. I liked it. Well done, Sir.’

‘Aw, thanks, mate,’ said Gary, and he was so chuffed that he could have kissed him. (Except he didn’t.) ‘I would’ve done one of yours if only you let me. What’s the one you did in one of your earlier videos? _Believe?_ I liked that one. I bet the crowd would’ve loved that.’

Mark turned off the laptop. ‘And let you take all the credit? No way,’ he jested. ‘How many videos of mine have you seen, anyway? I did _Believe_ ages ago.’

‘Enough to know, um . . .’ Gary swallowed. He wasn’t so sure how he would like that sentence to go. Part of him wanted to say, _Enough to know that I fancy you a little bit, actually, mate_ , but it was late and he’d just performed to a crowd of 3,000 people and God knows he’d gotten himself into trouble when still on a high. Instead he avoided the subject and said, ‘I don’t know why you loved my medley so much, anyway, Mark, your songs are much better than mine.’

Mark blushed a little at this. ‘You really think that?’

‘I do, actually.’

‘You’ve clearly never heard the songs on the mixtape I did before I was signed.’

‘It can’t be worse than me first album,’ Gary argued. Feeling a little hot, he took off the hoodie that he had changed into after the concert. Underneath, he was wearing a sleeveless shirt that covered so little skin that he might as well have taken it off along with his hoodie. ‘I had to record about three covers, my own songs were so bad.’

Mark’s eyes flickered to Gary’s arms. ‘If you’re gonna compare discographies we might be here all night, you’ve done about thirty-three albums.’

Gary looked at the display on his microwave. 2:56. ‘Tis a shame I have to wake up early tomorrow or I would’ve played you me first single; it’s a cracker, honestly. You’d think it was recorded in 1891 rather than 1991, it’s so dated. Still, there’s always tomorrow, eh?’

‘You’re way too sensible, Mr. Barlow.’ Not feeling at all tired himself but spotting Gary’s need for a good night’s sleep, Mark got up. He neatly pushed his high chair to the table and put Gary’s laptop somewhere high so that the dogs wouldn’t trample all over it in the morning. ‘I wouldn’t mind staying up with you all night, you know,’ he said, a smug grin on his face as he went upstairs.

*

The boys were still sleeping with each other, albeit only for mere comfort. Every night, Mark would come up with a new excuse that would lead him into Gary’s bedroom — each excuse being considerably worse than the last: ‘It’s cold and the heater has broken down.’ ‘There’s a screeching fox outside me window.’ ‘I have a really bad back tonight, and your bed’s ergonomic, so  . . .’ etcetera.

Gary would fall for it every single time.

The boys never went further than amicable spooning and touching, but then they’d wake up in the morning tangled up in each other’s arms, catching each other’s eyes in the sunlit room, and there’d be that _look_ , just briefly, that was more intimate than anything. They both knew that they’d long crossed an invisible line by sharing their nights like this, but neither of them every mentioned it. Mentioning it would only make it an issue. 

Sometimes, Mark would lie that his back was hurting and rest his head on Gary’s chest, his fingers drawing circles over Gary’s clad body. They’d both fall asleep very quickly after that.

On Gary’s laptop, the truth that Mark was doing such a good job at avoiding was right there in front of him: e-mails from his ex, the words therein more accusatory with each sentence; reminders of bills that needed paying; sympathetic messages from colleagues; music forums being little understanding about Mark’s ‘departure from the label’; messages from so-called fans and producers, vehement and disappointed.

All of these things disappeared when Gary came home. He was a perfect distraction, a light in the dark.

Despite his worries, Mark always had a smile on his face, and it was thanks to this that Gary genuinely thought Mark’s anxiety had ceased. It hadn’t taken him long, but Mark had healed and it was good.

But one day Mark would have to stop hiding and face the facts: Mark Owen as an artist no longer existed. Mark Owen had no future in the music industry.

He was still terrified.

Still, on the surface Mark seemed fine, and he and Gary started being a lot more intimate. They continued talking about their private lives like they’d known each other forever, and plenty of touching was involved. Only just yesterday, Mark rested his head on Gary’s lap while they watched a TV series on Netflix. Later that night, Mark kissed Gary’s forehead right before they headed to bed. Together. And earlier, Gary rubbed the small of Mark’s back — just because. They never kissed each other on the lips and they never even held hands, but it all felt so _right_.

Tomorrow, he was going to ask Mark out.

Rob had given them their blessing on the phone that morning, and that’s all that Gary needed.

*

In his dreams, Gary was already busy thinking about what he and Mark would do on their very first date. They’d attend a music festival in the afternoon and go to a pub in the evening. They’d order a big steak and chips and talk and talk until there’d be _that_ moment, and they’d kiss. They’d kiss all the way back home in the car and maybe, just maybe, they’d even — _oh well_. For now, kissing was enough.

The blissful image of Gary’s dream date was cut short when Mark had another nightmare.

In his dream, Mark is back in his old apartment with his boyfriend. It’s just as Mark had left it a week ago: homely, untidy. Everything is in need of repairing. There are pieces of clothing all over the floor, some old, some new. A smell of freshly baked apple tart prickles Mark’s nostrils, and the familiarity feels almost too real.

Suddenly he and his boyfriend are undressing, kissing on their cheap IKEA bed. The boyfriend tastes strongly of alcohol, but Mark doesn’t care; all he cares about is getting his release, quickly now. He’s hungry and horny for affection and he no longer sees, no longer cares.

Mark wraps his arms and legs around his lover, and his lover disintegrates into sand and the sand is joined in a heap on the floor with the bed and furniture. Everything is crumbling. Everything has turned into dust, from the walls to the broken lamp on the ceiling, and Mark scrambles through piles of his former life until he stumbles. Mark is being pulled deeper and deeper into quicksand until the last thing he sees is his pile of demos crumbling into a sad heap, and all he can feel is choking and inhaling dust and sand until he can’t breathe no more.

Gary woke up to Mark’s cry seconds later, and he immediately turned on the lights to see what was wrong: Mark was sitting on the edge of the bed, back turned away from Gary, his face in his hands. He was shaking through shockwaves of sobs.

‘Mark, hey. It’s okay . . .’ Gary scooted closer and rested his hand on Mark’s back to remind him of his presence, and Mark immediately turned and cradled into Gary’s embrace. They half-lay, half-sat on the bed, Gary rubbing Mark’s arms and holding him tight, Mark crying against his chest. Overwhelmed by the incredible urge to make Mark feel better, Gary pressed his lips to the top of Mark’s head and then his temples when Mark looked up at him. Gary’s lips brushed Mark's tear-stained cheek before his mate faced him and closed the gap between them.

It took Gary a nanosecond to figure out what was happening.

Mark’s lips were on his.

Mark was kissing him.

But it wasn’t how it should be happening.

Panic racing through him, Gary closed his eyes involuntarily and gasped as Mark pushed him into the matrass. Gary wasn’t sure how Mark had managed to take his shirt off, but the next moment Mark was on top of him, half naked and utterly vulnerable, a look in his eyes that Gary had never seen before. The final tears on Mark’s cheeks had dried, and Gary looked at a red-eyed yet determined Mark as he basically yanked his black shirt off of him.

The second the piece of clothing landed on the floor, Mark’s lips were back on Gary’s skin, forcefully kissing his neck and painfully tugging at his earlobes with his teeth.

Normally Gary would have enjoyed this. Fucking hell, he liked Mark. He really did, and God did he want to make love to him.

But he _didn’t want this._ Not here. Not with Mark feeling so fucking vulnerable.

‘Mark, please . . .’ Gary’s hands were on Mark’s chest, trying uselessly to push him away from him. But Mark was stronger than he looked, and Gary let out a cry of pain when he felt Mark’s teeth against the skin under his collarbone. ‘Mark . . . !’

He didn’t want this he didn’t want this he didn’t want this

They struggled and kissed, uncertain hands everywhere, until Mark let out a loud sob against Gary’s chest. A shiver rocked his body, and the emotions from the nightmare came crashing back like he’d only just remembered them. It killed the light in his eyes, and back was the Mark that needed a hand to hold in the dark.

‘I’m so s-sorry,’ Mark whimpered before curling up against Gary’s bare upper body like a frightened child, ‘I’m so sorry . . . I just — I just want . . . Oh God,’ he moaned, and tears ran in great amounts down his cheeks. Mark was shaking quite badly now, and Gary instinctively wrapped his strong, thick arms around him tightly — even though Gary himself felt like he was about to pass out. His heart was racing faster than ever before, and it took a minute or two before his breathing slowed down. When it finally did, Mark had stopped shaking.

‘I’m so sorry, Gary. I don’t know — I . . .’

‘Hey, _shhh,_ it’s okay,’ Gary said softly as he massaged Mark’s hair with shaking hands, ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Just sleep now,’ he whispered when Mark’s eyes began to droop, ‘There you go . . . just sleep . . .’

*

When Gary woke up that morning, Mark had already packed a suitcase.

‘You don’t have to leave . . . !’ Gary cried as he watched Mark carry one of his old suitcases downstairs. A suitable metaphor for what had remained of Mark’s life, the suitcase was almost empty but for the clothes that Gary had lent to him over the past few days.

‘I tried to kiss you, of course I have to fucking leave.’

The next moment Mark was putting on his coat. Later, his shoes.

‘It was just a kiss,’ Gary pleaded pointlessly. His heart was pumping fast against his chest and he reckoned that any time soon it might stop working altogether, for he was feeling so miserable and helpless and desperate all at once that it wouldn’t even matter if it did.

‘I think you and I both know that I didn’t just want to kiss you,’ said Mark. There was no eye-contact, no touching. Just Mark, rendered back to how he was several days ago. ‘I don’t deserve to be here anymore. Never did, though, did I?’ he added sadly.

‘Don’t say that . . . !’ Shivering, Gary put on his coat and followed Mark out. He hadn’t even heard the taxi arriving, but here it was, in front of his front door, crushing evidence that something very bad was happing.

‘I’m sayin’ it now. I’ve done nothing but cause you trouble since I got here, Mr. Barlow, and you know that,’ Mark said as the taxi driver put his suitcase into the boot of his car. ‘I don’t want to put you through that any longer than I have to. You deserve better than us emotional wrecks, you know,’ he added before getting into the car, a sad smile on his face that Gary decided he liked much less than Mark’s true smile. God, that man’s smile could light up New York.

It was as though Gary was watching everything as though in a dream, floating from up above and unable to intervene. Events were regrettably sped up and things were said that one might regret, and suddenly Gary was alone on his porch, watching the car become smaller and smaller until it disappeared behind a tree.

Mark asked the taxi driver to turn the radio on. A sad song played, suiting the storm that was raging inside of him.

Gary went back inside and grabbed his phone, only to remember that he had never asked Mark for his phone number.

Mark leaned his head against the window and slept. He awoke five minutes later when the car drove over some speedbumps and he decided a car wasn’t a very good place for sleeping in.

Robbie received six texts in quick succession.

Gary thought about calling his chauffeur, only to realise with a pang that he didn’t know where Mark was headed. He knew too little about Mark for that.

‘Sir, do we know where we’re headed yet?’ asked the taxi driver.

‘The train station, please, Sir.’

A mug was thrown into pieces, and it dawned on Gary that he couldn’t throw or break things in anger even if he wanted to. Everything was too expensive, and all of it was worth too much.


	4. Play It Till I Reach The Very End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! Even more stuff happens in this one! Excitement!

A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO

Gary was so excited about all the time he was spending with Mark that he ended up telling Rob everything. It wasn’t until he finished talking that Gary realised he had been going on and on about Mark for an hour and a half.

‘See! I told you, Gaz, didn’t I?’ Rob sounded smug.

For a moment, Gary reminisced about how well they’d both turned out. Gary was releasing his umpteenth album and Robbie was still in the middle of a tour that had been going on since forever. Life was fucking brilliant, in other words. And now that Gary might potentially have someone to share it with? Even better.

‘It’s not just that, though, Rob, I think — I think I love him, mate,’ Gary admitted. Again he found himself closing the door of the kitchen, terrified that Mark would overhear him and find out how he was feeling.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, okay, Gaz, but I thought we knew that already? You _did_ sort of go on about ‘im just now, you know. About his tattoo, and his hair, and his _be—autiful_ blue eyes?’

Gary was glad that Rob couldn’t see him, for he had gone bright red. ‘Shut up. And I never even _mentioned_ his dolphin tattoo, lad.’

‘A-ha! Anyway, I don’t blame you at all, mate, if I was in your position I’d probably end up fancyin’ ‘im too, if you know what I mean? But then again, I already have, so I won’t.’

‘I know that, but — God, Rob, I really think I’m in love with him. It’s not just a bloody crush anymore, this. I mean, _he kissed me on the cheek again last night_ _and I nearly had a fucking aneurysm,_ ’ he whispered. ‘It’s a biggie, this one.’

‘I don’t understand why you’re makin’ it sound like it’s a problem,’ said Rob.

‘Well, it is, cos _you’ve_ been with him and God knows the traumas you’ve put him through. I don’t wanna complicate things between us, we’ve been friends for so long.’

Silence at the other end of the line.

‘Bob? You still there?’

‘D’you want my blessing?’

Gary huffed. ‘I don’t want to _marry_ him, I just wanna . . .’ He didn’t know what he wanted.

‘I’m just sayin’. Look, Gaz, I don’t care that you’re datin’ one of my exes—’

‘We’re not dating yet.’

‘You’re technically already sleepin’ together.’

Gary felt himself go redder still. ‘You were saying?’

‘I don’t care that Mark’s my ex, and _you_ shouldn’t either. Ask him out if you wanna. Sides, you’re fucking intolerable when you haven’t ‘ad sex for a couple of months.’

‘I’m not — I —‘ Gary sighed in surrender. ‘Okay, yeah. Fair do’s. So you’re serious about this? I can ask him out?’

‘I’m serious, Gaz.’

‘Thanks, Bob.’

‘You’re welcome, Captain. He hates flowers by the way.’

‘Cheers.’

*

NOW

At its core, songwriting is nothing more than a vault of memories: you access a negative, shameful or sore memory in the back of your mind and you compartmentalize it. You cut it up into verses and soaring choruses, and by doing so the painful memory might become easier to bear. (Sometimes, it might not . . .) A lot of artists, old and new, use this approach, for it is easier to write about something you know than to pretend everything is all right. After all, why trick your listeners into thinking that your life is picture-perfect when it’s nothing but?

But Gary’s life _was_ mostly wonderful, so write about sad occasions he did not. Even if there _was_ a sadness to his lyrics brought on by a rainy day in Manchester, he always managed to turn the song into something positive with his big choruses and hopeful melodies. Even when all he was doing was write songs for artists who could hardly catch a break, he’d still write songs that were uplifting.

Sad songs were simply not a part of his repertoire; it just didn’t feel right to burden his audience with melancholy. His audience always came expecting a spectacle, an event. Sad songs, he felt, would only dampen the mood.

Two days after Mark’s departure it was Friday, and Friday, in this day and age, meant new music. Gary was to appear on Radio 2 for an in-depth interview about his new record and later he was going to cover a chart-topping single by an artist that he was not familiar with for Live Lounge. In the afternoon he was doing signing sessions at HMV. He had thankfully already filmed his interview with Graham Norton that was going out later tonight. In the interview, he spoke a little bit about his new album and the musical he was working on with a friend. As usual it was nothing ground-breaking, but it might get him a few more sales so he wasn’t complaining. (Not that he needed them, anyway.)

Gary had signed his 113th album of the day when he suddenly found himself thinking of Mark in the middle of HMV. He was imagining how he would tell Mark all about his little promotional tour that evening when he remembered with a pang that Mark wasn’t there anymore. Mark had left with a half-empty suitcase. Where he was, no one knew.

Deep down, Gary understood perfectly why Mark had felt the need to leave. Mark clearly hadn’t fought off his demons as well as they both thought he had, and yes, he _had_ tried kissing Gary. Mark had, without Gary’s permission but undoubtedly still held in the tight grasp of Darkness, tried . . . taking things further. People did impulsive things when down on their luck, and Gary _got that_. God, he’d been there himself! But it didn’t suddenly turn Mark into a bad person, and Gary oh so wished he could tell him that. He wasn’t angry at Mark for his mood swings and sadness, and he wasn’t angry at him for needing intimacy. But he wanted Mark to be intimate with Gary because of _Gary_ , not because he needed escaping from whatever fears he was facing in the dark.

Put simply, he was missing Mark terribly.

He’d sent Rob text after text, but even Rob had no idea where Mark might’ve gone. Rob suggested trying his ex’s house, but Gary wasn’t so sure how that would go down. In his mind, Gary had created an image of Mark’s ex that was evil and devilish, ugly and rotten on the inside. He didn’t fancy meeting him, so he sent the cute intern from Polydor instead. (Gary told his manager to tell Jenna from HRM to tell the intern that Mark still needed to sign some sort of contract, and the intern fell for it hook, line, and sinker.) The Evil Ex then nearly pushed the poor intern off his doorstep and announced in very explicit words that Mark had disappeared. 

Still nothing.

It was easy to forget about the situation in the mundane tasks of the day, but then Gary saw someone who looked a bit like Mark – someone who perhaps had the same nose or posture as him – and the next moment Gary was in the staff toilet at the back of HMV, trying his best not to throw up.

If Mark’s absence was doing _this_ to him, he wasn’t so sure if he wanted Mark back at all. He was used to being on top of everything. He was used to being in control of his feelings. Life was perfectly ordinary before Mark arrived in his life with his clothes as his only possession, and part of Gary just wanted everything to go back to how it was.

But then he remembered how alive he’d been feeling for the past few days, not only because Mark was making him feel like an infatuated teenager but also because of the consequent anger and confusion and unfamiliarity of it all, and the thought left Gary’s mind. Of course he wanted Mark back.

Gary rubbed his eyes, flushed the toilet in the pretence that he’d just taken a big shit, opened the door and joined his manager at the sink.

_It’s just another forty minutes, max. You can do this._

‘Gary, what’s wrong?’ his manager asked him. ‘You’ve not been yourself for a couple of days and Rob won’t tell me anything. It’s not like you to act this way.’

Gary washed his hands with soap. ‘It’s nothing. I just want to get this bloody record out of the way, is all.’

Gary never wrote sad songs, but he did when he got home that night. Before Mark, Gary thought his house was a thing of beauty. Everything was priceless and bespoke. Furniture shone even in the dark. Every painting had a tale to tell. Thousands upon thousands of pounds had been poured into the creation and refurbishing of his grand Cheshire mansion, and it showed. But then Mark left, taking with him the comfiness of Gary’s expensive furniture and the grandeur of the entrance hall. Having Mark there made the house a home. Now, it was just a large building, a financial safety net in case things went wrong. His bedroom was just a bedroom, and the opaque vase that Mark said he liked so much just a vase. Nothing about it felt real at all.

When Gary finished his brand new song in his too-large bedroom, he felt two very conflicting emotions. One: the song was too sad, too raw. Two: it was better than anything he’d written all year, which was very frustrating because there’s no way he’d ever put such an emotional song on one of his records.

Thus annoyed with himself, he crumpled up the piece of paper and started anew. He tried changing the melody. He even added a new verse, but whatever he did changed nothing about the song’s underlying emotions. Whatever he did, the song always sounded sad. In fact, all his songs did, from the new ones created in his bedroom tonight to the ones he’d performed ever since he was twenty-one.

Changed beyond belief after being performed a hundred or a thousand times, his new single took on a different meaning in the Live Lounge that day. The lyrics became about Mark when he reached the middle eight and when the song ended he no longer liked it. It had been completely transformed.

After his radio appearance he tried phoning Mark again (Rob had given him his phone number), but it just went to voicemail again: ‘Hey, Marko, it’s me, Gary. Again. Um, call me? I worry about you, mate.’

Unfortunately Gary’s request went unanswered, and another day went by with no news from Mark whatsoever.

His album went platinum a week later, but he felt nothing.

*

Gary received news in the form of a series of text messages on a lonely Monday.

 **13 November 2015. 07:15** — GAZ I’VE DONE SOME DIGGING AND I’VE FOUND OUT WHERE MARK IS. A MATE OF A MATE SAYS THAT HE’S MOVED INTO A FLAT IN LONDON. IT’S REAL SHABBY AND OLD AND DANGEROUS LIKE. HE WON’T SAY WHY HE’S IGNORING YOUR CALLS BUT I RECKON THAT HE’S JUST SCARED THAT HE MUCKED EVERYTHING UP

‘He didn’t,’ Gary mumbled.

 **13 November 2015. 07:21** — ANYWAY I’VE FORWARDED YOU THE ADDRESS BUT MARK’S A BIT LIKE ME WHEN HE’S SAD SO HE’S NOT LIKELY TO ANSWER HIS DOOR. I THINK YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO GO IN GUNS BLAZING

 **13 November 2015. 07:22** — NOT LITERALLY MIND

 **13 November 2015. 07:43** — I really like him Rob :-(

 **13 November 2015. 07:44** — I KNOW HE JUST NEEDS TO SEE THAT

 **13 November 2015. 07:45** — I can’t though can I

 **13 November 2015. 07:46** — YOU’RE A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE AREN’T YOU GAZ

 **13 November 2015. 07:49** — Are you suggesting I buy him a boat or ??

 **13 November 2015. 07:50** — NO BUT THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE YOU CAN DO FOR HIM

‘Ah.’

Of course. The solution had been in front of him all this time. It was ridiculous, yes, and dare he say it completely grandiose, but it’s the only thing he could think of right now. For when Mark left his suitcase wasn’t empty because he had no possessions, but because the things he cared most about had been taken from him.

 **13 November 2015. 07:53** — I see what you mean Rob thank you

 **13 November 2015. 07:55** — YOU’RE WELCOME BOSS

*

Returning to the humdrum of London for the first time after being dropped and heading to Gary’s in Cheshire was like going home after a good concert or festival. At concerts, you’re in this pleasant, impenetrable bubble that keeps out the monsters after dark, or they should do if the music’s all right. For an hour or more, all that matters is singing the right notes if you’re the one who’s on stage and taking a note of everything you see when you’re not. Music becomes a defence mechanism.

Mark, of course, had done a few gigs in his life: he’d done the kiddie versions of V Festival and Glastonbury and had toured with the best of the best. He’d spent the vast majority of his adult life performing at low-budget weddings just so he could pay the bills. He’d done staff parties and busking. These gigs were often the highlight of his day, and sometimes he’d spend weeks or even months counting down to this or that festival because it was just so exciting. Making music was exciting, and getting to play your songs in front of a live audience even more so.

For Mark, the bubble always burst upon leaving the venue and feeling the chill of the evening air stick to his skin. Instantly after stepping off stage, it was as though the gig had never even happened. So overwhelmed had all his senses been that there was no more room left for new memories, only vague recollections of a single piece of ticker tape fluttering down a sky of spotlights.

That’s what leaving Mark’s house had been like for Mark. So much had happened that it didn’t even feel real anymore.

The only thing that felt real was the tight knot in his stomach every time he heard Gary on the radio.

Leaving the Cheshire mansion seemed like the best decision at the time, but now that he was looking for a new job in London he wasn’t so sure. Perhaps he should’ve stayed at Gary’s after all, for the day when London was the dream city of music and opportunities felt so long ago now. How was he ever going to find a job in music when everyone else was so much more qualified?

Mark’s first job was at a bank in Manchester. Or rather, his first job that _he managed to keep for more than a month_ ; when he was fifteen or sixteen Mark worked as a cashier in a posh clothes shop, but he got fired in week three because he got Coke all over his uniform! His two-year stint as bank employee wasn’t enjoyable at all but his parents were dead proud of him and at least it allowed him to buy some new clothes every month. In fact, the first thing he bought of his own money was a pair of trendy blue sneakers. (Looking back on it now he could perhaps have done better to save money for singing lessons, but at least he managed to pull a few attractive individuals thanks to his impeccable dress sense.)

 _‘I’ve just had a look, Sir, and these are all the songs we –_ you, _Sir_ _– should be able to get back – purchase, sorry – according to the contract Mr. Owen signed a year ago. It’s not much, but it should make up for your friend’s . . . losses. What’re you planning to do with them, anyway? With all due respect, Sir, but these tracks are very much still, er, in their early stages of completion. By which I mean to say, well, they’re very . . .’_

In a modern street that wasn’t so infested with selfie-taking tourists, Mark passed a Japanese bookstore on his left and a record shop on his right. There was a cardboard cut-out of Gary in the shop window. Feeling flustered at the mere sight of this fake Gary, Mark crossed the street without looking and walked a little faster. Why couldn’t Gary just leave him alone? God!

Not paying attention to where he was going, Mark walked into a businessman who was in an awful hurry. He apologised profusely before the man dusted off his expensive jacket and left with a judgmental shake of his head.

Mark hated today.

_‘Never mind that, have you been working on the video I told you to?’_

_‘Yes, Sir, b-but . . .’_

He wondered what would have happened if he’d met Gary under normal circumstances. Would Gary be a mere flicker in his head, or would he still feel that indescribable feeling of being in love? Of needing someone and yearning to be needed?

_‘I want this to be fucking everywhere, lad. YouTube, TV, everything you’ve got. D’you think you can do that for me?’_

It’s funny, cos Mark had written so many love songs over the years – some happy, some sad, most somewhere in between – and yet he couldn’t bring himself to put his feelings for Gary into words. They were there in the pit of his stomach and the melodies of his songs, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get Gary out of his head. He thought it would all stop being so very complicated the second he walked out of that door one or two weeks ago, but it didn’t. It only got harder.

At first, the butterflies were only there because he thought Gary was hot and a bit weird. He was mind-blowingly attractive and yet a complete and utter dork; above all else, it made Mark want to push Gary’s boundaries. Tease him. See what it would take for Gary to snap. But then Mark started having a bit of trouble and Gary took care of him, took him in, and the intrigue turned into something else: a mutual need to be looked after.

After all, how could Mark go to bed each night without being held like that?

Perhaps if he’d just been honest like Gary told him to from the start, none of this would have happened.

_‘You want it to go viral?’_

_‘Is that possible?’_

Mark’s second job was as a tea boy at a record company.

The job was Mark’s first insight into the world of making music, and like every intern or outsider in a company, he wanted more. Only being relegated to making tea and printing contracts and e-mails, Mark never saw the stress his colleagues were under. He didn’t realize that being in this industry was tough, that it broke people.

Until now.

 _‘Yes, but . . . Mr. Barlow, Sir, I’m just an intern. I’m, er, not even supposed to be in the_ office _right now. I could lose my job for just being here.’_

_‘That photo of Kylie on your phone, she’s your favourite artist?’_

Another establishment, a small recording studio with its own label, was looking for a new assistant-slash-receptionist, that sort of thing. Mark saw the job advertised in the papers this morning and called them up immediately. A quick visit to said recording studio later, Mark was regrettably told that he wasn’t qualified for the job. The average age of the people he met there told him his forty-something years probably had something to do with it, but he kept his mouth shut and declined the apologetic cup of coffee the manager offered him.

_‘Er, yes, Sir. But I don’t see what that’s got anything to do with . . .’_

Mark walked the busy streets of London until his feet hurt.

He passed the record shop with the life-size Gary Barlow cut-out again. He noticed it was an inch too tall.

There was still one more vacancy left on the list that he’d scribbled down in his apartment: a boring office job. He’d probably be turned down for a second time.

_‘D’you wanna meet her? I can do that for you.’_

Perhaps he’d try his hand at busking again, but it was such a pain trying to get a permit and/or busking licence in London that he might as well not bother. Besides, it paid fuck all these days; he’d probably be better off trying to earn money off his videos on YouTube. That is, if people still even _watched_ his videos.

_‘. . . Is t-there a particular font you’d like, Sir?’_

_‘Good man.’_

A busy crowd of tourists forced Mark into another street. Then another, and he suddenly realised where he was: Piccadilly Circus, with its 21st-century adverts and screens, subtle and not-so-subtle messages prying your subconscious dozens at a time.

Standing on a small set of steps in front of the beautiful, oft-photographed Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, Mark could see the entire circus perfectly. He was looking for an office just a short walk from the Piccadilly tube station. He’d looked up the address in the Yellow Pages but had not bothered to look the office up on a map. Like every other non-Londoner who had visited the city up to a hundred times, he assumed that he’d be able to find his way purely with intuition and vague recollections from previous visits.

Of course, this assumption was completely wrong.

Wildly looking around him for a clue as to whether he should go north or head back south, a kind lady started towards him and asked Mark if he needed any directions. Not wanting to keep the lady from her own business, he said, ‘Oh no, bless you, I’m fine, thanks’, and continued looking, still rooted to the same spot.

He was lost, literally and metaphorically.

Behind him, a rare ray of autumn sunlight hit the Eros statue on top of the fountain. For a moment, a Swedish tourist who was looking at the winged statue through her smartphone thought she saw it twitch. Unfortunately her outdated iPhone was too late to catch the movement; by the time the photo had been made, Eros was back in its innocent position.

Mark decided that the office was _probably_ somewhere to his right when something very strange happened.

As though in a scary post-apocalyptic novel, all the screens on the circus were turned off. Every. Single. One. Video displays, neon signs and TV screens, everything went black. People stopped in their tracks. A woman was pointing at something. A silence fell. Instantly, the road junction felt eerie, empty. Mark, having seen enough films to know where this was going, felt a strange sensation in his stomach that he assumed was irrational fear. He was wrong.

By the time enough passers-by noticed the lack of Coca-Cola and H&M ads, the screens flickered back on one by one, showing —

‘Hi, my name’s Mark,’ boomed through a hidden sound system on the square, catching yet more tourists and Londoners unawares. They all stopped to watch. On the large screens at the other side of the busy street there was one of Mark’s old vlogs, magnified. ‘I’m, er, I’m gonna sing a song for ya,’ said the Mark from the colossal YouTube video.

Mark’s jaw dropped. His heart rate sped up. That was him! That was _definitely_ him! How the fuck was this happening?

Even though Mark never returned to his own videos the second they were published on YouTube (he couldn’t stand to watch himself), he remembered this one well. He’d just had news that a record label was interested in him, and he wrote this song on his guitar in under an hour. He still had his handwritten lyrics somewhere.

It was called _Hold Up A Light._

But the song that the gathered crowd on Piccadilly Circus were seeing and listening to wasn’t one that Mark recognized. It was different. The production of the song was better, slicker; not at all like the backing track he put together on his ten-year-old laptop. It had strings and backing vocals. A proper piano, not one that came out of a computer.

A group of tourists had all grabbed their phones and cameras to film the spectacle on the streets.

A confused police officer seemed uncertain whether to call it in.

The statue of Eros was watching the video intently until a young girl nearly caught it on camera.

Mark’s resurrected song reached a climax of backing vocals and orchestral manoeuvres, and Mark’s trained ear managed to pick up one voice underneath the spine-tingling melody of the piano: Gary’s.

Gary.

Of course.

The song ended to an unseen shot of Mark’s debut video. It showed a bit of desert and Mark’s name, big and powerful in a serif font.

Just like that, the screens flickered back to the ads they were showing before Mark’s video hijacked the transmission. The onlookers continued on their own merry way, heading into different directions on the square and its surrounding streets like ink sinking into water.

Gary had done this. God knows how he’d done it, but he had and it was all that Mark needed to finally admit that he loved Gary as more than a friend, a caregiver. He wished he could turn back time and go back to that night and not fuck everything up, but then again if he did he would not be feeling the indescribable joy when he saw that Gary was stood there, casually leaning against a black barrier, watching Mark with the best smile _ever_ on his face.

It was then, in that moment, surrounded by confused onlookers, that Mark realised. Their feelings went beyond needing someone to hold on to in the night. It went beyond recording studios, trust, and breakfast in bed; it was about finding someone who was on the same wavelength as him and who would go out of their way to make him happier. Robbie knew from the start that Gary could be that person.

And he _was_.

Fucking hell, he was.

The hair on Mark’s body standing on end for reasons unrelated to the cold, Mark went over to him.

‘What’d you think?’ said Gary when Mark had dodged his way through the crowd. ‘You like that?’

Gary was looking smug as hell. He was wearing a long black coat, a cashmere scarf wrapped carefully around his neck. He had grown a bit more facial hair since Mark had last seen him, and he looked good. _Really_ good. His nose was a blotchy pink due to the cold, and he seemed to be shivering in spite of his many layers of clothing. His hair was a bit longer as well. Sort of sticky-uppy, it was. Nice. Very nice.

Better still, Mark didn’t feel any awkwardness between them. It was just like how they had left it before that odd night so many weeks or days ago. Better than that, even.

Mark rolled his eyes. ‘I always did think you were a pompous little shit with too much money to spend, you show-off,’ he said, not cruelly. ‘I’d almost say you were compensatin’ for something.’

‘Far from it.’

Mark chuckled. He looked down to see Gary’s hand on the barrier – looking a bit cold and naked in this chilly weather – and Mark wrapped his own gloved hand over Gary’s. He rubbed the back of Gary’s hand until Gary’s nose coloured an even deeper shade of pink. ‘How’d you know where I was?’

Gary cleared his throat. ‘The company you applied for a job at this morn gave me a call, said the name sounded familiar. They phoned around and they said you were headed here.’ Mark figured Gary had probably gone through more trouble than he was willing to indulge but said nothing when Gary explained how he managed to effectively hijack Piccadilly Square. It had involved quite a lot of arm-twisting and cashing in on old favours. ‘Anyway, admit it; t’was good, that was,’ Gary said finally, jerking his head to the large screens overhead.

‘I’m a bit disappointed about the lack of Star Wars references, to be honest. Did _you_ make it?’

Gary shook his head. ‘The intern at Polydor did. Bribed him with concert tickets. You’re never going to let the whole Star Wars thing go, are you?’

‘Nope,’ was Mark’s reply. He was smiling from ear to ear.

Gary said nothing. All he could do in that moment was stare at Mark’s face, which had gone through so many transformations since he first met him. In the beginning, on that chilly October morning, there was a sadness in Mark’s blue eyes that affected the rest of his countenance like a shadow hanging over him. But then Mark opened up to him and Gary found himself liking those blue eyes more and more. He loved the way they sparkled whenever Mark talked about the things he loved most. He loved the way Mark spoke about his music, with such an illustrative and intelligent flair.

But Gary loved the look of Mark’s lips most of all. Oh, how he wished he could kiss them again; properly this time, not on the back of a nightmare.

It was the only thing Gary could still think about clearly. That, and the fact that he was missing him so very much.

‘Please move back in with me,’ Gary whispered, his request barely audible over the city sounds. Mark opened his mouth to say something brash, but Gary was quick to interrupt: ‘Don’t argue, just — just say yes. Please, Mark. I miss you. _I like you._ It’s just not the same without you, it really isn’t. Me house is too big when you’re not there.’

Again, that twinkle in Mark’s eyes. ‘Are you asking me to go steady with you, Mr. Barlow?’

Gary started blabbering then. ‘Just move back in with me and — God, Mark, they deserve so much better, those songs of yours. I want — I want to sign you, Mark. To me own label, I mean. I’ve already bought your demos back from your old label and all we need to do is re-record them. I know a guy who’s more than happy to do the production on your debut, and—’

Mark wrapped his arms around Gary’s neck and hugged him passionately. ‘ _Thank you_ , Gary,’ he said, full of gratitude. ‘And just for the record, I like you too. So, so much.’

Taken aback by this sudden show of affection, Gary said nothing and just smiled as they hugged like only two lovers could.

‘So you’re not angry that I, you know . . . _kissed_ you two weeks ago?’ Mark asked when their hug came to a natural end.

Mark wished that everything that had happened in the previous weeks and months had no more effect on him, but they did. He was still terrified of waking up one day to find himself on the streets, jobless and without a roof over his head, and found it hard to face up to the fact that he had fallen in love with someone so soon after breaking up with his boyfriend. But he had, and so be it; the fact that Gary had stayed throughout his breakdowns, nightly advances and nightmares meant more than having his songs playlisted ever could.

‘God, no, Mark,’ said Gary, shaking his head. ‘I want to— Hang on.’

A light drizzle turned into rain and the rain turned into a downpour. Gary opened the small umbrella that he had conveniently left in one of the pockets of his coat and pulled Mark closer so that they were both more or less sheltered. The umbrella being very small, they were as close as when they had been hugging.

Gary went on, ‘I want to kiss you again and again, but when we’re both happy and awake enough to enjoy it. And anytime you feel like that moment might be there, you just let me know, and we’ll . . .’

‘What, play with your lightsabers?’ Mark suggested cheekily.

‘Hm. I was going to ask you out, you know. Had a restaurant booked and everything.’

‘ _Did_ you, now? I see.’ Mark considered this for a moment, stared at his feet as though suddenly overcome with shyness and said, quite softly, ‘I love you, Gary.’

Gary kissed Mark’s forehead. ‘I know.’

*

True to his word, Gary set up his own label only a few weeks after the release of his seventh album. He formally signed Mark immediately afterwards. After all the paperwork was out of the way and Mark had picked up his belongings at his old apartment (including, among other things, a guitar and a hat; Gary didn’t like the latter very much), the boys immediately went into the studio to write and record.

Having been recorded almost exclusively on a Dictaphone, most of Mark's demos were of shocking sound quality. Underneath it all they were good songs, those demos, really, really good, but Gary was a perfectionist so he insisted that Mark re-record them. Mark did so, and within a day or two they had seven tracks that sounded like brand new and that could easily all be released as singles. Even the one song that Mark had written in a drunken mood began to take shape and turn into a little masterpiece.

In between sessions, Mark and Gary became more and more intimate, sharing shy pecks on the cheek in between takes that later became passionate kisses on the mouth. Kissing Mark was fast becoming Gary's favourite thing in the entire world, topping even performing in front of an audience.

One morning, the boys woke up together again. Ever since Gary had taken Mark under his wing and signed him, Mark had not had an anxiety attack in what felt like forever, and the nightmares had ceased. Life, generally, was more pleasant for the both of them. The mansion felt happier and livelier than it ever had with Mark around, his dirty laundry dropped carelessly on the floor, the smell of baked goods filling the kitchen on Sunday mornings.

Having spent so much time together, they had almost invented their own self-deprecating sense of humour, with Mark occasionally butting in with jokes about Gary’s Nerd Status. Anyone who did not know their true story would have thought they’d known each other for years.

Mark had an entire morning and afternoon’s worth of writing ahead of him, and he could not have felt happier. Today, they might very well finish and record the last piece of the puzzle that was Mark’s album. Today might be the day that all of their hard work finally paid off — but it had to wait, for when they looked into each other’s eyes they both _knew_ : today was also the day to be doing something else.

It was early. Seven o’clock? Eight, perhaps. They started kissing – slowly and intimately –, their bodies still covered with sheets. Gary's hands moved blindly towards the small of Mark's back and he managed to pull his suddenly very awake boyfriend on top of him. Despite the cold, they had both stopped wearing shirts to bed weeks ago, and sometimes Gary would spend minutes rubbing Mark’s tattoo with his fingertips until they both fell asleep.

Not saying a word, they both more or less managed to wriggle out of their pyjama bottoms and boxers. They lazily rubbed their hardening cocks against each other while they kissed, hands everywhere and nowhere. Soon, the boys completely lost themselves to an overwhelming plethora of stimuli: the soft cloth of the bedsheets against their naked skins; Gary’s hands rubbing up and down Mark’s warm back; Mark’s little _oohs_ and _ahs_ as they rocked together slowly — Mark’s _cock_ , fucking hell; Gary had never really taken Mark to be a small guy in _that_ department, but judging by the friction against Gary’s own cock, Mark was big. Proper big.

Gary’s mouth watered just thinking about it.

‘I feel like I’m losing my virginity again, I’m so nervous,’ Gary admitted after a pleasant peck to the neck. Mark rolled his hips ever so slightly, and the tips of their cocks touched.

Gary couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had sex. He might as well _be_ a virgin, it’d been so long. It must’ve been before he moved in. Back when he was still living in his tiny apartment in London and when one night stands were still something that were a part of his life.

Back when he thought he couldn’t love someone again. 

‘Mark, I’ll be honest, mate, it’s been a while since I—’

‘Don’t care,’ said Mark, his voice raspy and breathless. He kissed Gary’s ear and sucked his earlobe. Gary’s response – back arched, a low, guttural moan escaping his lips – was instantaneous. ‘You’ve got a bit of a sensitive spot there, Mr. Now what would happen if I . . . _Ooh_ , you really are sensitive! Anyway, you can still get it up, can’t you?’ said Mark after a while, at which Gary raised his right eyebrow so high that it almost disappeared into his hairline.

‘Can I still . . . ? Seriously, Mark? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m rock hard for you right now, mate.’

‘All right, all right, no need to get grumpy . . .’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘Then stop talking and touch me, Mr. Barlow,’ Mark said softly, the last word followed by a warm exhale of breath against Gary’s skin. ‘Touch me like you mean it,’ he added, sounding wonderfully turned on, and then he _actually went and stuck Gary’s fingers inside his mouth._

‘Jesus Christ.’ Gary’s heart did a triple somersault as he watched Mark suck two of his fingers off. Mark was doing so suspiciously expertly, taking in the entire length of Gary’s index and middle fingers while never taking his eyes of Gary’s.

‘You like that, don’t ya?’ Mark asked rhetorically.

Gary gave a wordless nod.

‘There,’ Mark said after he’d given Gary’s fingers one more suck, ‘You’re all prepared now.’

‘Um, for what?’

Mark rolled his eyes as if to say, _Seriously?_

‘Oh, right, never mind,’ Gary said, getting it. Nervousness gradually subsiding, his soft, warm hands moved slowly down the small of Mark’s back. Next, Mark’s arse. The next moment, his hands were probing Mark's entrance, the tips of his wet fingers curiously rubbing his perineum. Mark was still lying on top of him, expectant and excited for what was to come. He smelled just like he had when they first spent the night together, of strawberries and lavender. 

For a moment Gary wondered if maybe he should ask Mark for extra permission, a silent nod of the head to indicate that he was really ready and not just doing this because of anxiety or a sense of obligation — but then Gary remembered all the kisses and brief, curious touches in the recording booth (like when Mark rubbed his bum while they were listening to the backing track Stuart had sent them), and he realized that they’d both been ready for this for weeks.

It had changed both their lives, this relationship. Quickly after they’d had their first real kiss in the back of a car – with Gary’s hand gently melting Mark’s boundaries –, Gary started taking Mark to every single event he was invited to. The songwriter was more than happy to show Mark off on red carpets and in party tents, slyly introducing him as his business partner but meaning to say he was his lover. Soon, Mark was telling everyone he met about his own songs, occasionally casting furtive looks at Gary that to the press and industry professionals looked grateful, kind, but meant so much more to the both of them.

In Mark’s eyes Gary saw growth and raw talent, and in the way Mark was looking at him he saw love, tenfold.

‘What is it like to be signed to Gary Barlow’s new record label?’ one journalist would ask, and there’d be that _look_ , warming Gary up from top to toe.

‘Oh, it’s amazing,’ Mark would say into a microphone, his answers as rehearsed as the questions.

‘It must be hard work, though.’

But sometimes he’d go off script and say, ‘Oh yes, it’s always _hard_ when you’re with him . . .’

They always told each other they’d wait until Mark was x days clean, but what Gary didn’t realize, or perhaps didn’t want to realize was that behind all those layers of history and angst there was a Mark hidden that liked teasing as much as the next guy. The further removed from his last swan dive into darkness, the cheekier and hornier Mark became; and right now, he was really fucking horny.

It didn’t come as a surprise when Mark moaned softly against Gary's cheek when one of his lover’s fingers slid into him.  

‘Oh wow,’ was all that Mark could muster when he felt Gary's middle finger push in and out slowly, stretching the soft, thin skin around his entrance in a way that walked the perfect line between ache and pleasure. ‘Shit, Gary . . .’

‘Tell me what you want, Mark,’ said Gary huskily. He couldn’t believe that they’d gotten this far. That Mark was lying on top of him, with the right amount of colour in his cheeks and no more anxiety taking a hold of his body. That Gary’s hands were on him, his touches projecting images of Mark’s naked body onto his mind’s eye underneath the sheets.

Mark's mind went completely blank as Gary pushed in another digit. Gary was fingering him expertly now, delicately, and Mark had to fight the urge to cry out. ‘I want—’

‘Anything, Mark. I'll do anything for you.’

What Mark said next wasn’t how Gary had envisioned his first time with him. He’d always imagined his first time with Mark to be soft, gentle, with Gary going down on his knees for him after a candle-lit dinner in the dining room. Just imagining the taste of Mark’s cock satisfying his taste buds, the appreciative sounds of his lover filling the room like a pleasant crescendo, was enough to make the hair on Gary’s body stand on end. Then they’d stumble into the next best room and they’d undress each other until there was no more piece of clothing to remove. Usually in these fantasies, Gary was on top, making love to Mark on the floor. Slowly, thoroughly. 

‘Will you let me ride you, Gary?’

That came as a bit of a surprise.

Mark’s eyes watched Gary’s throat as he swallowed. ‘Wow. Okay, yeah,’ said Gary after a moment’s consideration, and Mark smiled his toothiest grin yet.

‘Perfect.’ Mark rolled out of the bed to grab his things, and Gary could finally look at his naked body properly. He’d seen Mark bare chested before, of course, but Mark looked much healthier now. Toned without being muscular. Tanned. Nipples erect. That tattoo, placed on his belly like a promise. And then his cock, nice and hard. His hair had grown a bit longer over the past few weeks as well, and his fringe was now messily covering his eyes. It was fucking _hot_.

‘You like?’ asked Mark, catching Gary in the middle of a rude staring session. He was busy looking for a bottle of lube, but couldn’t find any.

‘I like,’ said Gary, nodding enthusiastically. He was too transfixed by Mark’s body to say much else.

‘God knows how you’ve won so many awards for songwriting,’ said Mark, giving up looking for his essentials and shoving the drawer closed with his knee. He went over to their king-sized bed, where Gary was still half-lying, half-sitting.

Standing next to the bed, Mark started rubbing his cock while Gary watched with a red blotch spreading over his cheeks. ‘Suck it, come on,’ Mark tempted him. ‘I know you want to.’

‘I-I’ll be honest, mate, this is not how I imagined having sex with you,’ stuttered Gary, a weird knot of nervousness and excitement taking shape in his stomach. He could barely keep his eyes off Mark’s hand stroking his own member. Mark, Gary thought, clearly knew what he was doing. That is to say, of course he did, but he was touching himself in such a provocative manner – stroking himself just _so –_ that it almost put him in charge, waiting and testing until Gary gave in and jumped on him.

‘You mean in the morning?’ said Mark.

‘With you in control,’ Gary admitted. He felt his own cock twitch at the thought.

Mark chuckled. ‘What, did you think our first time was going to be all rose petals and candlelights? God, you did, didn’t ya?’ he added when Gary did an embarrassed lip bite. ‘Remember when we went to your studio for the first time and I borrowed your laptop and you got all angry and _grumpy_? I would’ve fucked you there and then if you’d let me.’

‘Fuck. Seriously? But I thought . . .’

‘I was feeling unhappy when we first met, not sexually repressed, you nerd . . .’

‘Shut up, Owen.’

Mark’s smirk turned into an ‘o’ when Gary wrapped his lips around his cock and sucked him in. Mark watched as Gary’s green-grey eyes flicked up at him, staring at the brunette as his head bobbed back and forth. A shudder moved him as Gary cupped his balls, the vibrations of Gary’s moans reverberating against his entire body.

It had been a long time since Gary had sucked dick, and he was going to make the best of it: spurred on by Mark’s needy groans, he swallowed Mark whole until his nose was pressed against Mark’s soft abdomen. Gary’s usually so calm eyes had a certain desperation to it as if he needed this more than air, so he didn’t protest when Mark placed his hands in his hair and thrust his hips back and forth over and over again, fucking Gary’s eager throat until he gagged.

It took Mark a lot of effort to stop. ‘Enough of that, before I come down your throat,’ he said, and Gary obeyed and slumped back into the pile of pillows behind him. His lips looked deliciously moist, and Mark sloppily kissed him before announcing that he was going to head to the bathroom and grab his toiletry bag.

‘Do you wanna use a condom or . . . ?’

‘I’ve not had sex since I last dyed my hair so I think we’re good,’ Gary said, half-joking.

‘I didn’t know that you used to dye your hair.’

‘Point proven I think.’

‘Seriously though, you used to dye your hair?’

‘Weren’t we in the middle of something here?’

‘Right, sorry.’

Socks were taken off and annoying pillows shoved out of the way. After what felt like an eternity, Gary watched with beating heart how a naked Mark lowered himself onto his lap and enveloped the tip of his thick cock with his warmth, his back turned towards him like a reverse cowboy riding a bull. (Mark said he liked it like that, and Gary, being a very good boyfriend, couldn’t refuse.)

Mark’s breath hitched, followed by a series of _ah’s_ as he sat on Gary’s lubed-up cock inch by inch. After a quiet _ow_ and a long, drawn-out sigh, Mark started rolling his hips slowly — and a little bit faster when Gary's hands crept up his sides to steady him.

‘So big, Gaz. Oh my God.’

Gary moaned softly at the sight of Mark’s tanned back moving and glistening in the morning light as he rolled his pert arse back and forth, his knees sideways on either side of Gary’s body. Now that he thought about it, maybe they should just save the sweet lovemaking for later. ‘You’ve never looked hotter, mate. _Fucking hell_ ,’ he swore as he watched his wet cock slide in and out of his lover’s hole. ‘C’mon, honey, ride that cock. _Ohh_ , that’s it,’ he moaned, ‘Nice and slow . . .’

Previous relationships had ended because of Gary’s work ethic, because was no longer capable of taking care of someone, intentionally or no. And at first, he _did_ think he had to take care of Mark. Mark became his new, private project, his own problem to solve; like an album made loose from the tight strings of record labels and so-called business men. But then Mark got better, and he realized there were suddenly two people in this relationship, not unlike the partnership between writer and producer. There was Gary, the writer and architect of his own songs, slaving away at lyrics, at his life, and Mark, the producer, decorating Gary’s life with wallpapers of sound.

They worked so well together not because Mark needed help, but because Gary needed it, too.

And this moment here, like so many moments previously, was them creating something together.

Together, they were building towards climax like their music so beautifully could, Gary’s nails digging crescent moons into Mark’s skin like an imprint of sound onto a track; Mark’s obscene, high-pitched moans creating the perfect harmonies as his prostrate was stroked over and over again.

‘Jesus Christ, Mark,’ Gary groaned when his cock hit a particularly nice spot, ‘You’re – _oh my God – ohh_ yes. Push on it, there you go . . .’

Mark looked over his shoulder. ‘So you’re enjoyin’ this, then?’ he asked smugly.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Gary, and he wrapped his strong arms around Mark's middle and pulled him closer so that Mark’s body was leaning against his chest, his face only inches away from Gary’s. Gary's right hand lifted up Mark's leg so that he could enter him deeper, and he pounded Mark’s arse until his mate was rendered a sweating mess on top of him.

‘Fucking fuck me, come on,’ Mark begged, and Gary reached for his cock and stroked it in time with his movements.

‘Do you want it harder?’ said Gary, sounding out of breath. ‘God, I can’t believe we’re doing this . . .’

‘Fuck, yes, I want it harder,’ Mark whimpered, and Gary fucked him so hard and so thoroughly that the room became a glorious cacophony of moans, creaking furniture and skin against skin. They both came seconds or minutes later, thick, sticky cum filling Mark to the brim, painting his flat chest with his own surplus of wetness. (Which made Mark look even sexier than he already did, _hello_.) They kissed and cuddled until the sound of Gary's phone told them that it was time to get out of bed.

‘I suppose now is not the time to make a Star Wars pun,’ said Mark, stretching deliberately slowly.

Gary rolled his eyes. ‘Please, God. No puns.’

‘You're the Obi-Wan for me, Gary.’

‘That's it, I’m splitting up with you,’ Gary said, but not without kissing Mark again, a big grin on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Thanks also to those who left comments and kept me motivated. :-) I won't be posting another TT fic for some time but I hoped you enjoyed this one! ♥


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